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The Essentials of Prayer 


EDITED BY HOMER W. HODGE 


The Spiritual Life Books 
By EDWARD M. BOUNDS 


The Reality of Prayer. Cloth. $1.25 


Dr. A. C. Dixon says: ‘‘If the Church would 
pray, as the Scriptures Dr. Bounds unfolds 
teach us we may, there would be irresistible 
power at work. 


The Possibilities of Prayer 
COS UN eee neh: sae o 


A rich, exceptionally helpful addition to Doc- 
tor Bounds’ books, which deal with the place and 
significance prayer has in the life of the believer. 


Heaven: A Place—A City—A Home. 
COLD iie jiieeg tat Milind dion palais Cue 


Possessed of a wonderfully full knowledge of 
Holy Scripture, a man of unswerving faith and 
mystical insight, Mr. Bounds writes with a 
certitude, confidence and joyous anticipation of 
the eternal felicity awaiting the faithful believer. 


Purpose in Prayer. Cloth . . $1.25 


“Mr. Bounds has the gift of insight, and with 
this a faculty for selecting words to express 
precisely that which responds to the heart-hunger 
of those who are seeking spiritual enlightenment.” 

—Sunday School Times. 


Satan: His Personality, His Power, 
His Overthrow. Cloth . . . $1.25 





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EDWARD M. BOUNDS 
AT THE AGE OF 45 


The 
Essentials of Prayer 


By 
EDWARD M. ‘BOUNDS, D.D. 


Author of “Purpose in Prayer,” “The Possibilities 
of Prayer,’ “Heaven,” “Satan,” etc. 


PED ee 
HOMER W. HODGE 





New York CHICAGO 
Fleming H. Revell Company 


LonDON AND EDINBURGH 


Copyright, 1925, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


Printed in the United States of America 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 


Foreword 


Life Books (of which the present volume is 

the sixth) has been a labour of love which 
has brought great profit and blessing to my own 
soul. After years of close study of the literary 
remains of this great Christian, together with the 
work of other mystics, I am fully persuaded that 
to but few of the sons of men has there been given 
such spiritual power as was vouchsafed to Edward | 
McKendree Bounds. ‘Truly he was a burning and 
a shining light, and as The Sunday School Times 
says, “he was a specialist in prayer and his books 
are for the quiet hour, for careful meditation and 
for all who wish to seek and find the treasures 
of God.” 

It was my great privilege to know the author 
well, and also to know that his intention, in every- 
thing he wrote, was for the salvation of his read- 
ers. The Essentials of Prayer is sent forth in this 
spirit. May God bless it to many hearts and use it 
for the upbuilding and strengthening of Christian 
character through the length and breadth of the 
land. 


(ture work of editing the Bounds Spiritual 


Homer W. Hopce. 
Flushing, N. Y. 





. PRAYER BorN OF COMPASSION 
. CONCERTED PRAYER 
. THE UNIVERSALITY OF PRAYER 


. PRAYER AND MIssIONS 


Contents 


. PRAYER TAKES IN THE WHOLE Man . 
. PRAYER AND HUMILITY 

. PRAYER AND DEVOTION 

. PRAYER, PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING . 
. PRAYER AND TROUBLE 

. PRAYER AND TROUBLE (Continued) 

. PRAYER AND Gop’s WorK 

. PRAYER AND CONSECRATION 


. PRAYER AND A DEFINITE RELIGIOUS 


STANDARD 


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I 
PRAYER TAKES IN THE WHOLE MAN 


“Henry Clay Trumbull spoke forth the Infinite in the 
terms of our world, and the Eternal in the forms of our 
human life. Some years ago, on a ferry-boat, I met a gentle- 
man who knew him, and I told him that when I had last seen 
Dr. Trumbull, a fortnight before, he had spoken of him. 
“Oh, yes,’ said my friend, “he was a great Christian, so real, 
so intense. He was at my home years ago and we were talk- 
ing about prayer.” ‘Why, Trumbull,” I said, “you don’t 
mean to say if you lost a pencil you would pray about it, 
and ask God to help you find it.” “Of course I would; of 
course I would,’ was his instant and excited reply. Of 
course he would. Was not his faith a real thing? Like the 
Saviour, he put his doctrine strongly by taking an extreme 
illustration to embody his principle, but the principle was 
fundamental. He did trust God in everything. And the 
Father honoured the trust of His child.”—Ropert E. Spree. 


RAYER has to do with the entire man. 
Prayer takes in man in his whole being, 
mind, soul and body. It takes the whole 

man to pray, and prayer affects the entire man in 
its gracious results. As the whole nature of man 
enters into prayer, so also all that belongs to man 
is the beneficiary of prayer. All of man receives 
benefits in prayer. The whole man must be given 
to God in praying. The largest results in praying 
come to him who gives himself, all of himself, all 


9 


10 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


that belongs to himself, to God. ‘This is the secret 
of full consecration, and this is a condition of suc- 
cessful praying, and the sort of praying which 
brings the largest fruits. 

The men of olden times who wrought well in 
prayer, who brought the largest things to pass, who 
moved God to do great things, were those who were 
entirely given over to God in their praying. God 
wants, and must have, all that there is in man in 
answering his prayers. He must have whole- 
hearted men through whom to work out His pur- 
poses and plans concerning men. God must have 
men in their entirety. No double-minded man need 
apply. No vacillating man can be used. No man 
with a divided allegiance to God, and the world and 
self, can do the praying that is needed. 

Holiness is wholeness, and so God wants holy 
men, men whole-hearted and true, for His service 
and for the work of praying. “ And the very God 
of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your 
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blame- 
less unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 
These are the sort of men God wants for leaders 
of the hosts of Israel, and these are the kind out of 
which the praying class is formed. 

Man is a trinity in one, and yet man is neither a 
trinity nor a dual creature when he prays, but a 
unit. Man is one in all the essentials and acts and 
attitudes of piety. Soul, spirit and body are to 
unite in all things pertaining to life and godliness. 


TAKING IN THE WHOLE MAN, 11 


The body, first of all, engages in prayer, since it 
assumes the praying attitude in prayer. Prostra- 
tion of the body becomes us in praying as well as 
prostration of the soul. The attitude of the body 
counts much in prayer, although it is true that the 
heart may be haughty and lifted up, and the mind 
listless and wandering, and the praying a mere 
form, even while the knees are bent in prayer. 

Daniel kneeled upon his knees three times a day 
in prayer. Solomon kneeled in prayer at the dedica- 
tion of the temple. Our Lord in Gethsemane pros- 
trated Himself in that memorable season of praying 
just before His betrayal. Where there is earnest 
and faithful praying the body always takes on the 
form most suited to the state of the soul at the 
time. The body, that far, joins the soul in praying. 

The entire man must pray. The whole man, life, 
heart, temper, mind, are in it. Each and all join in 
the prayer exercise. Doubt, double-mindedness, 
division of the affections, are all foreign to the 
closet. Character and conduct, undefiled, made 
whiter than snow, are mighty potencies, and are 
the most seemly beauties for the closet hour, and 
for the struggles of prayer. 

A loyal intellect must conspire and add the en- 
ergy and fire of its undoubting and undivided faith 
to that kind of an hour, the hour of prayer. 
Necessarily the mind enters into the praying. First 
of all, it takes thought to pray. The intellect 
teaches us we ought to pray. By serious thinking 


12 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


beforehand the mind prepares itself for approach- 
ing a throne of grace. Thought goes before en- 
trance into the closet and prepares the way for true 
praying. It considers what will be asked for in the 
closet hour. True praying does not leave to the 
inspiration of the hour what will be the requests of 
that hour. As praying is asking for something 
definite of God, so, beforehand, the thought arises 
— What shall I ask for at this hour?” All vain 
and evil and frivolous thoughts are eliminated, and 
the mind is given over entirely to God, thinking of 
Him, of what is needed, and what has been received 
in the past. By every token, prayer, in taking hold 
of the entire man, does not leave out the mind. 
The very first step in prayer is a mental one. ‘The 
disciples took that first step when they said unto 
Jesus at one time, “ Lord, teach us to pray.” We 
must be taught through the intellect, and just in 
so far as the intellect is given up to God in prayer, 
will we be able to learn well and readily the lesson 
of prayer. : 

Paul spreads the nature of prayer over the whole 
man. It must be so. It takes the whole man to— 
embrace in its god-like sympathies the entire race 
of man—the sorrows, the sins and the death of 
Adam’s fallen race. It takes the whole man to run 
parallel with God’s high and sublime will in saving 
mankind. It takes the whole man to stand with our 
Lord Jesus Christ as the one Mediator between God 
and sinful man. This is the doctrine Paul teaches 


TAKING IN THE WHOLE MAN 13 


in his prayer-directory in the second chapter of his 
first Epistle to Timothy. 

Nowhere does it appear so clearly that it requires 
the entire man in all departments of his being, to 
pray than in this teaching of Paul. It takes the 
whole man to pray till all the storms which agitate 
his soul are calmed to a great calm, till the stormy 
winds and waves cease as by a Godlike spell. It 
takes the whole man to pray till cruel tyrants and 
unjust rulers are changed in their natures and lives, 
as well as in their governing qualities, or till they 
cease torule. It requires the entire man in praying 
till high and proud and unspiritual ecclesiastics be- 
come gentle, lowly and religious, till godliness and 
gravity bear rule in Church and in State, in home 
and in business, in public as well as in private life. 

It is man’s business to pray; and it takes manly 
men to do it. It is godly business to pray and it 
takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who 
give over themselves entirely to prayer. Prayer is 
far-reaching in its influence and in its gracious ef- 
fects. It is intense and profound business which 
deals with God and His plans and purposes, and it 
takes whole-hearted men to do it. No half-hearted, 
half-brained, half-spirited effort will do for this 
serious, all-important, heavenly business. The 
whole heart, the whole brain, the whole spirit, 
must be in the matter of praying, which is so 
mightily to affect the characters and destinies 
of men. 


14 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


The answer of Jesus to the scribe as to what was 
the first and greatest commandment was as follows: 


“The Lord our God is one Lord; And thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy 
strength.” 


In one word, the entire man without reservation 
must love God. So it takes the same entire man to 
do the praying which God requires of men. All the 
powers of man must be engaged in it. God cannot 
tolerate a divided heart in the love He requires of 
men, neither can He bear with a divided man in 
praying. 

In the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm the 
Psalmist teaches this very truth in these words: 


“Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and 
that seek him with the whole heart.” 


It takes whole-hearted men to keep God’s com- 
mandments and it demands the same sort of men 
to seek God. These are they who are counted 
“blessed.” Upon these whole-hearted ones God’s 
approval rests. 

Bringing the case closer home to himself the 
Psalmist makes this declaration as to his practice: 
“With my whole heart have I sought thee; O let me 
not wander from thy commandments.” 

And further on, giving us his prayer for a wise 


TAKING IN THE WHOLE MAN 15 


and understanding heart, he tells us his purposes 
concerning the keeping of God’s law: 


“ Give me understanding and I shall keep thy law; 
Yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.” 


Just as it requires a whole heart given to God to 
gladly and fully obey God’s commandments, so it 
takes a whole heart to do effectual praying. 

Because it requires the whole man to pray, pray- 
ing is no easy task. Praying is far more than 
simply bending the knee and saying a few words 
by rote. 


“Tis not enough to bend the knee, 
And words of prayer to say; 
The heart must with the lips agree, 
Or else we do not pray.” 


Praying is no light and trifling exercise. While 
children should be taught early to pray, praying is 
no child’s task. Prayer draws upon the whole 
nature of man. Prayer engages all the powers of 
man’s moral and spiritual nature. It is this which 
explains somewhat the praying of our Lord de- 
scribed as in Hebrews 5:7: 


“ Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered 
up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and 
tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, 
and was heard in that he feared.” 


It takes only a moment’s thought to see how such 


16 #$THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


praying of our Lord drew mightily upon all the 
powers of His being, and called into exercise every 
part of His nature. This is the praying which 
brings the soul close to God and which brings God 
down to earth. 

Body, soul and spirit are taxed and brought under 
tribute to prayer. David Brainerd makes this 
record of his praying: 


“ God enabled me to agonise in prayer till 1 was wet 
with perspiration, though in the shade and in a cool 
place.” 

The Son of God in Gethsemane was in an agony 


of prayer, which engaged His whole being: 


“ And when he was at the place, he said unto them, 
Pray ye that ye enter not into temptation. And he 
was withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast, and 
kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be 
willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not 
my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an 
angel unto him, from heaven, strengthening him. 
And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly: 
and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood 
falling down to the ground.” Luke 22: 40-44. 


Here was praying which laid its hands on every 
part of our Lord’s nature, which called forth all the 
powers of his soul, His mind and His body. This 
was praying which took in the entire man. 

Paul was acquainted with this kind of praying. 
In writing to the Roman Christians, he urges them 
to pray with him after this fashion: 


TAKING IN THE WHOLE MAN 17 


“Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus 
Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye 
strive together with me in your prayers to God 
for me.” 


The words, “strive together with me,” tells of 
Paul’s praying, and how much he put into it. It is 
not a docile request, not a little thing, this sort of 
praying, this “striving with me.” It is of the 
nature of a great battle, a conflict to win, a great 
battle to be fought. The praying Christian, as the 
soldier, fights a life-and-death struggle. His hon- 
our, his immortality, and eternal life are all in it. 
This is praying as the athlete struggles for the 
mastery, and for the crown, and as he wrestles or 
runs a race. Everything depends on the strength 
he puts in it. Energy, ardour, swiftness, every 
power of his nature is in it. Every power is quick- 
ened and strained to its very utmost. Littleness, 
half-heartedness, weakness and laziness are all 
absent. 

Just as it takes the whole man to pray success- 
fully, so in turn the whole man receives the benefits 
of such praying. As every part of man’s complex 
being enters into true praying, so every part of that 
same nature receives blessings from God in answer 
to such praying. This kind of praying engages our 
undivided hearts, our full consent to be the Lord’s, 
our whole desires. 

God sees to it that when the whole man prays, in 
4urn the. whole man shall be blessed. His body 


18 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


takes in the good of praying, for much praying is 
done specifically for the body. Food and. rai- 
ment, health and bodily vigour, come in answer to 
praying. Clear mental action, right thinking, an 
enlightened understanding, and safe reasoning 
powers, come from praying. Divine guidance 
means God so moving and impressing the mind, 
that we shall make wise and safe decisions. “ The 
meek will he guide in judgment.” 

Many a praying preacher has been greatly helped 
just at this point. The unction of the Holy One 
which comes upon the preacher invigorates the 
mind, loosens up thought and gives utterance. This 
is the explanation of former days when men of very 
limited education had such wonderful liberty of the 
Spirit in praying and in preaching. Their thoughts 
flowed as a stream of water. ' Their entire intel- 
lectual machinery felt the impulse of the Divine 
Spirit’s gracious influences. 

And, of course, the soul receives large benefits in 
this sort of praying. Thousands can testify to this 
statement. So we repeat, that as the entire man 
comes into play in true, earnest effectual praying, 
so the entire man, soul, mind and body, receives the 
benefits of prayer. 


I] 


PRAYER AND HUMILITY 


“If two angels were to receive at the same moment a com- 
mission from God, one to go down and rule earth’s grandest 
empire, the other to go and sweep the streets of its meanest 


village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each 


which service fell to his lot, the post of ruler or the post of 
scavenger ; for the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to 
God’s will, and with equal joy they would lift a Lazarus in 
his rags to Abraham’s bosom, or be a chariot of fire to carry 
an Elijah home.”—JoHn NeEwvon, 


O be humble is to have a low estimate of 

one’s self. It is to be modest, lowly, with a 
disposition to seek obscurity. Humility re- 

tires itself from the public gaze. It does not seek 
publicity nor hunt for high places, neither does it 
care for prominence. Humility is retiring in its 
nature. Self-abasement belongs to humility. It is 
given to self-depreciation. It never exalts itself in 
the eyes of others nor even in the eyes of itself. 
Modesty is one of its most prominent characteristics. 
In humility there is the total absence of pride, 
and it is at the very farthest distance from any- 
thing like self-conceit. ‘There is no self-praise in 
humility. Rather it has the disposition to praise 
others. “In honour preferring one another.” It 
is not given to self-exaltation. Humility does not 


19 


20 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


love the uppermost seats and aspire to the high 
places. It is willing to take the lowliest seat and 
prefers those places where it will be unnoticed. 
The prayer of humility is after this fashion: 


“ Never let the world break in, 
Fix a mighty gulf between ; 
Keep me humble and unknown, 
Prized and loved by God alone.” 


Humility does not have its eyes on self, but 
rather on God and others. It is poor in spirit, 
meek in behaviour, lowly in heart. “ With all low- 
liness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing 
one another in love.” 

The parable of the Pharisee and publican is a 
sermon in brief on humility and self-praise. ‘The 
Pharisee, given over to self-conceit, wrapped up in 
himself, seeing only his own self-righteous deeds, 
catalogues his virtues before God, despising the 
poor publican who stands afar off. He exalts him- 
self, gives himself over to self-praise, is self- 
centered, and goes away unjustified, condemned 
and rejected by God. 

The publican sees no good in himself, is over- 
whelmed with self-depreciation, far removed from 
anything which would take any credit for any good 
in himself, does not presume to lift his eyes to 
heaven, but with downcast countenance smites him- 
self on his breast, and cries out, “ God be merciful 
to me, a sinner.”’ 


HUMILITY 21 


Our Lord with great preciseness gives us the 
sequel of: the story of these two men, one utterly 
devoid of humility, the other utterly submerged 
in the spirit of self-depreciation and lowliness of 
mind. 


“T tell you this man went down to his house justi- 
fied rather than the other; for every one that exalteth 
himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself 
shall be exalted.” Luke 18: 14. 


God puts a great price on humility of heart. It 
is good to be clothed with humility as with a gar- 
ment. It is written, “ God resisteth the proud, but 
giveth grace to the humble.” ‘That which brings 
the praying soul near to God is humility of heart. 
That which gives wings to prayer is lowliness of 
mind. That which gives ready access to the throne 
of grace is self-depreciation. Pride, self-esteem, 
and self-praise effectually shut the door of prayer. 
He who would come to God must approach Him 
with self hid from his eyes. He must not be 
puffed-up with self-conceit, nor be possessed with 
an over-estimate of his virtues and good works. 

Humility is a rare Christian grace, of great price. 
in the courts of heaven, entering into and being an 
inseparable condition of effectual praying. It gives 
access to God when other qualities fail. It takes 
many descriptions to describe it, and many defini- 
tions to define it. It is a rare and retiring grace. 
Tts full portrait is found only in the Lord Jesus 


22 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Christ. Our prayers must be set low before they 
can ever rise high. Our prayers must have much 
of the dust on them before they can ever have much 
of the glory of the skies in them. In our Lord’s 
teaching, humility has such prominence in His sys- 
tem of religion, and is such a distinguishing feature 
of His character, that to leave it out of His lesson 
on prayer would be very unseemly, would not com- 
port with His character, and would not fit into His 
religious system. 

The parable of the Pharisee and publican stands 
out in such bold relief that we must again refer to 
it. ‘The Pharisee seemed to be inured to prayer. 
Certainly he should have known by that time how 
to pray, but alas! like many others, he seemed never 
to have learned this invaluable’ lesson. He leaves 
business and business hours and walks with steady 
and fixed steps up to the house of prayer. ‘The 
position and place are well-chosen by him. There 
is the sacred place, the sacred hour, and the sacred 
name, each and all invoked by this seemingly pray- 
ing man. But this praying ecclesiastic, though 
schooled to prayer, by training and by habit, prays 
not. Words are uttered by him, but words are not 
prayer. God hears his words only to condemn him. 
A death-chill has come from those formal lips of 
prayer—a death-curse frome God is on his words 
of prayer. A solution of pride has entirely 
poisoned the prayer offering of that hour. His 
entire praying has been impregnated with self- 


HUMILITY 23 


praise, self-congratulation, and self-exaltation. 
That season of temple going has had no worship 
whatever in it. 

On the other hand, the publican, smitten with a 
deep sense of his sins and his inward sinfulness, 
realising how poor in spirit he is, how utterly de- 
void of anything like righteousness, goodness, or 
any quality which would commend him to God, his 
pride within utterly blasted and dead, falls down 
with humiliation and despair before God, while he 
utters a sharp cry for mercy for his sins and his 
guilt. A sense of sin and a realisation of utter un- 
worthiness has fixed the roots of humility deep 
down in his soul, and has oppressed self and eye 
and heart, downward to the dust. ‘This is the 
picture of humility against pride in praying. Here 
we see by sharp contrast the utter worthlessness of 
self-righteousness, self-exaltation, and self-praise in 
praying, and the great value, the beauty and the 
Divine commendation which comes to humility 
of heart, self-depreciation, and self-condemnation 
when a soul comes before God in prayer. 

Happy are they who have no righteousness of 
their own to plead and no goodness of their own of 
which to boast. Humility flourishes in the soil of 
a true and deep sense of our sinfulness and our 
nothingness. Nowhere does humility grow so 
rankly and so rapidly and shine so brilliantly, as’ 
when it feels all guilty, confesses all sin, and trusts 
all grace. vat the chief of sinners am, but Jesus 


24 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


died for me.” ‘That is praying ground, the ground 
of humility, low down, far away seemingly, but in 
reality brought nigh by the blood of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. God dwells in the lowly places. He makes 
such lowly places really the high places to the 
praying soul. 


“ Let the world their virtue boast, 

Their works of righteousness ; 
I, a wretch undone and lost, 

Am freely saved by grace; 
Other title I disclaim, 

This, only this, is all my plea, 
I the chief of sinners am, 

But Jesus died for me.” 


Humility is an indispensable , requisite of true 
prayer. It must be an attribute, a characteristic of 
prayer. Humility must be in the praying character 
as light is in the sun. Prayer has no beginning, no 
ending, no being, without humility. As a ship is 
made for the sea, so prayer is made for humility, 
and so humility is made for prayer. 

Humility is not abstraction from self, nor does 
it ignore thought about self. It is a many-phased 
principle. Humility is born by looking at God, and 
His holiness, and then looking at self and man’s 
unholiness. Humility loves obscurity and silence, 
dreads applause, esteems the virtues of others, ex- 
cuses their faults with mildness, easily pardons in- 
juries, fears contempt less and less, and sees 
baseness and falsehood in pride. A true nobleness 


HUMILITY 25 


and greatness are in humility. It knows and re- 
veres the inestimable riches of the Cross, and the 
humiliations of Jesus Christ. It fears the lustre of 
those virtues admired by men, and loves those 
that are more secret and which are prized by God. 
It draws comfort even from its own defects, 
through the abasement which they occasion. It 
prefers any degree of compunction before all light 
in the world. 

Somewhat after this order of description is that 
definable grace of humility, so perfectly drawn in 
the publican’s prayer, and so entirely absent from 
the prayer of the Pharisee. It takes many sittings 
to make a good picture of it. 

Humility holds in its keeping the very life of 
prayer. Neither pride nor vanity can pray. Hu- 
mility, though, is much more than the absence of 
vanity and pride. It is a positive quality, a sub- 
stantial force, which energises prayer. There is no 
power in prayer to ascend without it. Humility 
springs from a lowly estimate of ourselves and of 
our deservings. ‘The Pharisee prayed not, though 
well schooled and habituated to pray, because there 
was no humility in his praying. The publican 
prayed, though banned by the public and receiving 
no encouragement from Church sentiment, because 
he prayed in humility. To be clothed with humility 
is to be clothed with a praying garment. Humility 
is just feeling little because we are little. Humil- 
ity is realising our unworthiness because we are 


26 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


unworthy, the feeling and declaring ourselves sin- 
ners because we are sinners. Kneeling well becomes 
us as the attitude of prayer, because it betokens 
humility. 

The Pharisee’s proud estimate of himself and his 
supreme contempt for his neighbour closed the gates 
of prayer to him, while humility opened wide those 
gates to the defamed and reviled publican. 

That fearful saying of our Lord about the works 
of big, religious workers in the latter part of the 
Sermon on the Mount, is called out by proud esti- 
mates of work and wrong estimates of prayer: 


“ Many shall say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, 
have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name 
cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonder- 
ful works? And then will I profess unto them, I 
never knew you: depart from me, ye that work 
iniquity.” 


Humility is the first and last attribute of Christly 
religion, and the first and last attribute of Christly 
praying. ‘There is no Christ without humility. 
There is no praying without humility. If thou 
wouldst learn well the art of praying, then learn 
well the lesson of humility. 

How graceful and imperative does the attitude 
of humility become to us! Humility is one of the 
unchanging and exacting attitudes of prayer. 
Dust, ashes, earth upon the head, sackcloth for the 
body, and fasting for the appetites, were the sym- . 


HUMILITY 27 


bols of humility for the Old Testament saints. 
Sackcloth, fasting and ashes brought Daniel a low- 
liness before God, and brought Gabriel to him. 
The angels are fond of the sackcloth-and-ashes men. 

How lowly the attitude of Abraham, the friend 
of God, when pleading for God to stay His wrath 
against Sodom! “ Which am but sackcloth and 
ashes.” With what humility does Solomon appear 
before God! His grandeur is abased, and his glory 
and majesty are retired as he assumes the rightful 
attitude before God: “I am but a little child, and 
know not how to go out or to come in.” 

The pride of doing sends its poison all through 
our praying. The same pride of being infects all 
our prayers, no matter how well-worded they may 
be. It was this lack of humility, this self-applaud- 
ing, this self-exaltation, which kept the most reli- 
gious man of Christ’s day from being accepted of 
God. And the same thing will keep us in this day 
from being accepted of Him. 


“© that now I might decrease! 
O that all I am might cease! 
Let me into nothing fall! 

Let my Lord be all in all.” 


III 


PRAYER AND DEVOTION 


“Once as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, 
having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my man- 
ner commonly had been to walk for divine contemplation and 
prayer, | had a view that for me was extraordinary, of the 
glory of the Son of God. As near as I can judge, this con- 
tinued about an hour; and kept me the greater part of the 
time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency 
of soul to be what I know not otherwise how to express, 
emptied and annihilated; to love Him with a holy and pure 
love; to serve and follow Him; to be perfectly sanctified and 
made pure with a divine and heavenly purity.’—JoNaTHAN 
EDWARDS, 


EVOTION has a religious signification. 

The root of devotion is to devote to a 

sacred use. So that devotion in its true 

sense has to do with religious worship. It stands 

intimately connected with true prayer. Devotion is 

the particular frame of mind found in one entirely 

devoted to God. It is the spirit of reverence, of 

awe, of godly fear. It is a state of heart which 

appears before God in prayer and worship. It is 

foreign to everything like lightness of spirit, and is 

opposed to levity and noise and bluster. Devotion 

dwells in the realm of quietness and is still before 
God. It is serious, thoughtful, meditative. 

Devotion belongs to the inner life and lives in 


28 


DEVOTION 29 


the closet, but also appears in the public services of 
the sanctuary. It is a part of the very spirit of true 
worship, and is of the nature of the spirit of prayer. 
Devotion belongs to the devout man, whose 
thoughts and feelings are devoted to God. Such a 
man has a mind given up wholly to religion, and 
possesses a strong affection for God and an ardent 
love for His house. Cornelius was ‘‘ a devout man, 
one that feared God with all his house, which gave 
much alms to the people, and prayed always.” 
“Devout men carried Stephen to his burial.’ 
“One Ananias, a devout man, according to the 
law,” was sent unto Saul when he was blind, to tell 
him what the Lord would have him do. God can 
wonderfully use such men, for devout men are His 
chosen agents in carrying forward His plans. 
Prayer promotes the spirit of devotion, while 
devotion is favourable to the best praying. Devo- 
tion furthers prayer and helps to drive prayer home 
to the object which it seeks. Prayer thrives in the | 
atmosphere of true devotion.| It is easy to pray when 
in the spirit of devotion. ‘The attitude of mind and 
the state of heart implied in devotion make prayer 
effectual in reaching the throne of grace. God 
dwells where the spirit of devotion resides. All the 
graces of the Spirit are nourished and grow well in 
the environment created by devotion. Indeed, these 
graces grow nowhere else but here. ‘The absence of 
a devotional spirit means death to the graces born 
in a renewed heart. True worship finds congenial- 


80 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


_ity in the atmosphere made by a spirit of devotion. 
While prayer is helpful to devotion, at the same 
_ time devotion reacts on prayer, and helps us to pray. 

Devotion engages the heart in prayer. ‘It is not 
an easy task for the lips to try to pray while the 
heart is absent from it. The charge which God at 
one time made against His ancient Israel was, that 
they honoured Him with their lips while their hearts 
were far from Him. 

The very essence of prayer is the spirit of devo- 
tion. Without devotion prayer is an empty form, 
a vain round of words.’ Sad to say, much of this 
kind of prayer prevails, today, in the Church. ‘This 
is a busy age, bustling and active, and this bustling 
spirit has invaded the Church of God. Its reli- 
gious performances are many. ,he Church works 
at religion with the order, precision and force of 
real machinery. But too often it works with the 
heartlessness of the machine. ‘There is much of the 
treadmill movement in our ceaseless round and 
routine of religious doings. We pray without 
praying. | We sing without singing with the Spirit 
and the understanding. We have music without 
the praise of God being in it, or near it. We go to 
Church by habit, and come home all too gladly 
when the benediction is pronounced. We read our 
accustomed chapter in the Bible, and feel quite re- 
lieved when the task is done. We say our prayers 
by rote, as a schoolboy recites his lesson, and are 
not sorry when the Amen is uttered. 


DEVOTION : 31 


Religion has to do with everything but our »” 


hearts. It engages our hands and feet, it takes 
hold of our voices, it lays its hands on our money, 
it affects even the postures of our bodies, but it 
does not take hold of our affections, our desires, 
our zeal, and make us serious, desperately in 
earnest, and cause us to be quiet and worshipful in 
the presence of God. Social affinities attract us to 
the house of God, not the spirit of the occasion. 
Church membership keeps us after a fashion decent 
in outward conduct and with some shadow of 
loyalty to our baptismal vows, but the heart is not 
in the thing. It remains cold, formal, and unim- 
pressed amid all this outward performance, while 
we give ourselves over to self-congratulation that 
we are doing wonderfully well religiously. 

Why all these sad defects in our piety? Why 
this modern perversion of the true nature of the 
religion of Jesus Christ? Why is the modern type 
of religion so much like a jewel-case, with the 
precious jewels gone? Why so much of this 
handling religion with the hands, often not too 
clean or unsoiled, and so little of it felt in the 
heart and witnessed in the life? 

The great lack of modern religion is the spirit 
of devotion. We hear sermons in the same spirit 
with which we listen to a lecture or hear a speech. 
We visit the house of God just as if it were a 
common place, on a level with the theatre, the 
lecture-room or the forum. We look upon the 


32 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


minister of God not as the divinely-called man of 
God, but merely as a sort of public speaker, on a 
plane with the politician, the lawyer, or the average 
speech maker, or the lecturer. Oh, how the spirit 
of true and genuine devotion would radically change 
all this for the better! We handle sacred things 
just as if they were the things of the world. Even 
the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper becomes a mere 
religious performance, no preparation for it before- 
hand, and no meditation and prayer afterward. 
Even the sacrament of Baptism has lost much of 
its solemnity, and degenerated into a mere form, 
with nothing specially in it. 

We need the spirit of devotion, not only to 
salt our secularities, but to make praying real pray- 
ers. We need to put the spirit of devotion into 
Monday’s business as well as in Sunday’s worship. 
We need the spirit of devotion, to recollect always 
the presence of God, to be always doing the will of 
God, to direct all things always to the glory of God. 

The spirit of devotion puts God in all things. It 
puts God not merely in our praying and Church 
going, but in all the concerns of life. “ Whether, 
therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do 
all to the glory of God.” ‘The spirit of devotion 
makes the common things of earth sacred, and the 
little things great. With this spirit of devotion, we 
go to business on Monday directed by the very same 
influence, and inspired by the same influences by 
which we went to Church on Sunday. The spirit 


DEVOTION 33 


of devotion makes a Sabbath out of Saturday, and 
transforms the shop and the office into a temple 
of God. 

‘The spirit of devotion removes religion from be- 
ing a thin veneer, and puts it into the very life and 
being of our souls. With it religion ceases to be do- 
ing a mere work, and becomes a heart, \Sending its 
rich blood through every artery and beating with 
the pulsations of vigourous and radiant life. 

The spirit of devotion is not merely the aroma 
of religion, but the stalk and stem on which re- 
ligion grows. It is the salt which penetrates and 
makes savoury all religious acts. It is the sugar 
which sweetens duty, self-denial and sacrifice. It 
is the bright colouring which relieves the* dull- 
ness of religious performances. It dispels fri- 
volity and drives away all skin-deep forms of 
worship, and makes worship a serious and deep- 
seated service, impregnating body, soul and spirit 
with its heavenly infusion. Let us ask in all 
seriousness, has this highest angel of heaven, this 
heavenly spirit of devotion, this brightest and 
best angel of earth, left us? When the angel 
of devotion has gone, the angel of prayer has 
lost its wings, and it becomes a deformed and 
loveless thing. 

The ardour of devotion is in prayer. In the 
fourth chapter of Revelation, verse eight, we read: 
“And they rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, 
Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and 


34 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


is, and is to come.” ‘The inspiration and centre of 
their rapturous devotion is the holiness of God. 
That holiness of God claims their attention, in- 
flames their devotion. There is nothing cold, 
‘nothing dull, nothing wearisome about them or 
their heavenly worship. “ They rest not day nor 
night.” What zeal! What unfainting ardour and 
ceaseless rapture! The ministry of prayer, if it be 
anything worthy of the name, is a ministry of 
ardour, a ministry of unwearied and intense long- 
ing after God and after His holiness. 

The spirit of devotion pervades the saints in 
heaven and characterizes the worship of heaven’s 
angelic intelligences. No devotionless creatures are 
in that heavenly world. God is there, and His very 
presence begets the spirit of reverence, of awe, and 
of filial fear. If we would be partakers with them 
after death, we must first learn the spirit of devo- 
tion on earth before we get there. 

These living creatures in their restless, tireless, 
attitude after God, and their rapt devotion to His 
holiness, are the perfect symbols and illustrations 
of true prayer and its ardour. Prayer must be 
aflame. Its ardour must consume. Prayer with- 
out fervour is as a sun without light or heat, or as a 
flower without beauty or fragrance. A soul devoted 
to God is a fervent soul, and prayer is the creature 
of that flame. He only can truly pray who is all 
aglow for holiness, for God, and for heaven. 

Activity is not strength. Work is not zeal. 


DEVOTION 35 


Moving about is not devotion. Activity often is 
the unrecognised symptom of spiritual weakness. 
It may be hurtful to piety when made the substitute 
for real devotion in worship. The colt is much 
more active than its mother, but she is the wheel- 
horse of the team, pulling the load without noise or 
bluster or show. ‘The child is more active than the 
father, who may be bearing the rule and burdens of 
an empire on his heart and shoulders. Enthusiasm 
is more active than faith, though it cannot remove 
mountains nor call into action any of the omnipo- 
tent forces which faith can command. 

A. feeble, lively, showy religious activity may 
spring from many causes. There is much running 
around, much stirring about, much going here and 
there, in present-day Church life, but sad to say, 
the spirit of genuine, heartfelt devotion is strangely 
lacking. If there be real spiritual life, a deep-toned 
activity will spring from it. But it is an activity 
springing from strength and not from weakness. 
It is an activity which has deep roots, many and 
strong. 

In the nature of things, religion must show much 
of its growth above ground. Much will be seen and 
be evident to the eye. The flower and fruit of a 
holy life, abounding in good works, must be seen. 
It cannot be otherwise. But the surface growth 
must be based on a vigourous growth of unseen life 
and hidden roots. Deep down in the renewed na- 
ture must the roots of religion go which is seen on 


36 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


the outside. ‘The external must have a deep inter- _ 
nal groundwork. There must be much of the 
invisible and the underground growth, or else the 
life will be feeble and short-lived, and the external 
growth sickly and fruitless. 

In the Book of the prophet Isaiah these words 
are written: 


“They that wait on the Lord shall renew their 
strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; 
they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk 
and not faint.” 40:31. 


This is the genesis of the whole matter of activ- 
ity and strength of the most energetic, exhaustless 
and untiring nature. All this is the result of 
waiting on God. 

There may be much of sree induced by drill, 
created by enthusiasm, the product of the weakness 
of the flesh, the inspiration of volatile, short-lived 
forces. Activity is often at the expense of more solid, 
useful elements, and generally to the total neglect of 
prayer. ‘To be too busy with God’s work to com- 
mune with God, to be busy with doing Church work 
without taking time to talk to God about His work, 
is the highway to backsliding, and many people have 
walked therein to the hurt of their immortal souls. 

Notwithstanding great activity, great enthusi- 
asm, and much hurrah for the work, the work and 
the activity will be but blindness without the culti- 
vation and the maturity of the graces of prayer. 


IV 


PRAYER, PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING 


“Dr. A. J. Gordon describes the impression made upon his 
mind by intercourse with Joseph Rabinowitz, whom Dr. 
Delitzsch considered the most remarkable Jewish convert 
since Saul of Tarsus: ‘ We shall not soon forget the radiance 
that would come into his face as he expounded the Messianic 
psalms at our morning or evening worship, and how, as here 
and there he caught a glimpse of the suffering or glorified 
Christ, he would suddenly lift his hands and his eyes to 
heaven in a burst of adoration, exclaiming with Thomas after 
he had seen the nail-prints, “ My. Lord, and my God.”’” 

—D. M. McInryre. 


RAYER, praise and thanksgiving all go in 
company. A close relationship exists be- 
tween ‘them. Praise and thanksgiving are 

so near alike that it is not easy to distinguish be- 
tween them or define them separately. The Scrip- 
tures join these three things together. Many are 
the causes for thanksgiving and praise. The 
Psalms are filled with many songs of praise and 
hymns of thanksgiving, all pointing back to the 
results of.prayer. Thanksgiving includes gratitude. 
In fact thanksgiving is but the expression of an 
inward conscious gratitude to God for mercies re- 
ceived. Gratitude is an inward emotion of the soul, 
involuntarily arising therein, while thanksgiving is 
the voluntary expression of gratitude. 
37 


38 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Thanksgiving is oral, positive, active. It is the 
giving out of something to God. Thanksgiving 
comes out into the open. Gratitude is secret, silent, 
negative, passive, not showing its being till ex- 
pressed in praise and thanksgiving. Gratitude is 
felt in the heart. Thanksgiving is the expression of 
that inward feeling. 

Thanksgiving is just what the word itself signi- 
fies—the giving of thanks to God. It is giving 
something to God in words which we feel at heart 
for blessings received. Gratitude arises from a 
contemplation of the goodness of God. It is bred 
by serious meditation on what God has done for 
us. Both gratitude and thanksgiving point to, 
and have to do with God and His mercies. The 
heart is consciously grateful to God. The soul 
gives expression to that heartfelt gratitude to God 
in words or acts. 

Gratitude is born of meditation on God’s grace 
and mercy. “ The Lord hath done great things for 
us, whereof we are glad.”” Herein we see the value 
of serious meditation. ‘ My meditation of him 
shall be sweet.’”’ Praise is begotten by gratitude and 
a conscious obligation to God for mercies given. 
As we think of mercies past, the heart is inwardly 
moved to gratitude. 


“T love to think on mercies past, 
And future good implore; 
And all my cares and sorrows cast 
On Him whom I adore.” 


PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING 39 


Love is the child of gratitude. Love grows as 
gratitude is felt, and then breaks out into praise and 
thanksgiving to God: “I love the Lord because he 
hath heard my voice and my supplication.” An- 
swered prayers cause gratitude, and gratitude 
brings forth a love that declares it will not cease 
praying: “Because he hath inclined his ear unto 
me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.” 
Gratitude and love move to larger and increased 
praying. 

Paul appeals to the Romans to dedicate them- 
selves wholly to God, a living sacrifice, and the 
constraining motive is the mercies of God: 


“I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies 
of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, 
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable 
service.” 


Consideration of God’s mercies not only begets 
gratitude, but induces a large consecration to God 
of all we have and are. So that prayer, thanks- 
giving and consecration are all linked together 
inseparably. 

Gratitude and thanksgiving always looks back at 
the past though it may also take in the present. But 
prayer always looks to the future. Thanksgiving 
deals with things already received. Prayer deals 
with things desired, asked for and expected. Prayer 
turns to gratitude and praise when the things asked 
for have been granted by God. 


40 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


As prayer brings things to us which beget grati- 
tude and thanksgiving, so praise and gratitude pro- 
mote prayer, and induce more praying and better 
praying. 

Gratitude and thanksgiving forever stand op- 
posed to all murmurings at God’s dealings with us, 
and all complainings at our lot. Gratitude and 
murmuring never abide in the same heart at the 
same time. An unappreciative spirit has no stand- 
ing beside gratitude and praise. And true prayer 
corrects complaining and promotes gratitude and 
thanksgiving. Dissatisfaction at one’s lot, and a 
disposition to be discontented with things which 
come to us in the providence of God, are foes to 
gratitude and enemies to thanksgiving. 

The murmurers are ungrateful people. Appreci- 
ative men and women have neither the time nor 
disposition to stop and complain. The bane of the 
wilderness-journey of the Israelites on their way to 
Canaan was their proneness to murmur and com- 
plain against God and Moses. For this, God was 
several times greatly grieved, and it took the strong 
praying of Moses to avert God’s wrath because of 
these murmurings. ‘The absence of gratitude left 
no room nor disposition for praise and thanksgiv- 
ing, just as it is so always. But when these same 
Israelites were brought through the Red Sea dry 
shod, while their enemies were destroyed, there was 
a song of praise led by Miriam, the sister of Moses. 
One of the leading sins of these Israelites was for-. 


PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING ure 


getfulness of God and His mercies, and ingratitude 
of soul. This brought forth murmurings and lack 
of praise, as it always does. 

When Paul wrote to the Colossians to let the 
word of Christ dwell in their hearts richly and to 
let the peace of God rule therein, he said to them, 
“and be ye thankful,’ and adds, “ admonishing 
yourselves in psalms and hymns and _ spiritual 
songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto 
the Lord.” 

Further on, in writing to these same Christians, 
he joins prayer and thanksgiving together: “‘ Con- 
tinue in prayer, and watch in the same with 
thanksgiving.” 

And writing to the Thessalonians, he again joins 
them in union; “ Rejoice evermore. Pray without 
ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the 
will of God concerning you.” 


“We thank Thee, Lord of heaven and earth, 
Who hast preserved us from our birth; 
Redeemed us oft from death and dread, 
And with Thy gifts our table spread.” 


Wherever there is true prayer, there thanksgiv- 
ing and gratitude stand hard by, ready to respond 
to the answer when it comes. For as prayer brings 
the answer, so the answer brings forth gratitude and 
praise. As prayer sets God to work, so answered 
prayer sets thanksgiving to work. Thanksgiving 
follows answered prayer just as day succeeds night. 


42 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


True prayer and gratitude lead to full consecra- 
tion, and consecration leads to more praying and 
better praying. A consecrated life is both a prayer- 
life and a thanksgiving life. 

The spirit of praise was once the boast of the 
primitive Church. This spirit abode on the taber- 
nacles of these early Christians, as a cloud of glory 
out of which God shined and spoke. It filled their 
temples with the perfume of costly, flaming incense. 
That this spirit of praise is sadly deficient in our 
present-day congregations must be evident to every 
careful observer. That it is a mighty force in pro- 
jecting the Gospel, and its body of vital forces, 
‘must be equally evident. To restore the spirit of 
praise to our congregations should be one of the 
main points with every true pastor. ‘The normal 
state of the Church is set forth in the declaration 
made to God in Psalm 65: “ Praise waiteth for 
thee, O Lord, and unto thee shall the vow be 
performed.” 

Praise is so distinctly and definitely wedded to 
prayer, so inseparably joined, that they cannot be 
divorced. Praise is dependent on prayer for its full 
volume and its sweetest melody. 

Singing is one method of praise, not the highest 
it is true, but it is the ordinary and usual form. 
(The singing service in our churches has much to 
do with praise, for according to the character of the 
singing will be the genuineness or the measure of 
praise. ‘Ihe singing may be so directed as to have 


PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING 43 


in it elements which deprave and debauch prayer. 
It may be so directed as to drive away everything 
like thanksgiving and praise. Much of modern 
singing in our churches is entirely foreign to any- 
thing like hearty, sincere praise to God. 

The spirit of prayer and of true praise go hand 
in hand. Both are often entirely dissipated by the. 
flippant, thoughtless, light singing in our congrega- 
tions. Much of the singing lacks serious thought 
and is devoid of everything like a devotional spirit. 
Its lustiness and sparkle may not only dissipate all 
the essential features of worship, but may substi- 
tute the flesh for the spirit. 

' Giving thanks is the very life of prayer. It is its 
fragrance and music, its poetry and its crown. 
Prayer bringing the desired answer breaks out into 
praise and thanksgiving. So that whatever inter- 
feres with and injures the spirit of prayer necessa- 
rily hurts and dissipates the spirit of praise. 

The heart must have in it the grace of prayer to 
sing the praise of God. Spiritual singing is not to 
be done by musical taste or talent, but by the grace 
of God in the heart. Nothing helps praise so 
mightily as a gracious revival of true religion in the 
Church. The conscious presence of God inspires 
song. The angels and the glorified ones in heaven 
do not need artistic precentors to lead them, nor do 
they care for paid choirs to chime in with their 
heavenly doxologies of praise and worship. They 
are not dependent on singing schools to teach them 


AA THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


the notes and scale of singing. Their singing in- 
voluntarily breaks forth from the heart. 

God is immediately present in the heavenly as- 
semblies of the angels and the spirits of just men 
made perfect. His glorious presence creates the 
song, teaches the singing, and impregnates their 
notes of praise. It is soon earth. God’s presence 
begets singing and thanksgiving, while the absence 
of God from our congregations is the death of song, 
or, which amounts to the same, makes the singing 
lifeless, cold and formal. His conscious presence 
in our churches would bring back the days of praise 
and would restore the full chorus of song. 

Where grace abounds, song abounds. When 
God is in the heart, heaven is present and melody is 
there, and the lips overflow out of the abundance of 
the heart. This is as true in the private life of the 
believer as it is so in the congregations of the saints. 
The decay of singing, the dying down and out of 
the spirit of praise in song, means the decline of 
grace in the heart and the absence of God’s presence 
from the people. 

The main design of all singing is for God’s ear 
and to attract His attention and to please Him. It 
is “to the Lord,” for His glory, and to His honour. 
Certainly it is not for the glorification of the paid 
choir, to exalt the wonderful musical powers of the 
singers, nor is it to draw the people to the church, 
but it is for the glory of God and the good of the 
souls of the congregation. Alas! How far has the 


PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING AB 


singing of choirs of churches of modern times de- 
parted from this idea! It is no surprise that there 
is no life, no power, no unction, no spirit, in much 
of the Church singing heard in this day. It is 
sacrilege for any but sanctified hearts and holy lips 
to direct the singing part of the service of God’s 
house of prayer. Much of the singing in churches 
would do credit to the opera house, and might sat- 
isfy as mere entertainments, pleasing the ear, but 
as a part of real worship, having in it the spirit of 
praise and prayer, it is a fraud, an imposition on 
spiritually minded people, and entirely unacceptable 
to God. The cry should go out afresh, “ Let all the 
people praise the Lord,” for “it is good to sing 
praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise 
is comely.” 

The music of praise, for there is real music of 
soul in praise, is too hopeful and happy to be de- 
nied. All these are in the “ giving of thanks.” In 
Philippians, prayer is called “requests.” ‘“ Let 
your requests be made known unto God,” which 
describes prayer as an asking for a gift, giving 
prominence to the thing asked for, making it em- 
phatic, something to be given by God and received 
by us, and not something to be done by us. And 
all this is closely connected with gratitude to God, 
“with thanksgiving, let your requests be made 
known unto God.” 

God does much for us in answer to prayer, but 
we need from Him many gifts, and for them we are 


46 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


to make special prayer. According to our special 
needs, so must our praying be. Weare to be special 
and particular and bring to the knowledge of God 
by prayer, supplication and thanksgiving, our par- 
ticular requests, the things we need, the things we 
greatly desire. And with it all, accompanying all 
these requests, there must be thanksgiving. 

It is indeed a pleasing thought that what we are 
called upon to do on earth, to praise and give 
thanks, the angels in heaven and the redeemed dis- 
embodied spirits of the saints are doing also. It is 
still further pleasing to contemplate the glorious 
hope that what God wants us to do on earth, we will 
be engaged in doing throughout an unending eter- 
nity. Praise and thanksgiving will be our blessed 
employment while we remain in heaven. Nor will 
we ever grow weary of this pleasing task. 

Joseph Addison sets before us, in verse, this 
pleasing prospect: 


“Through every period of my life 
Thy goodness [ll pursue; 
And after death, in distant worlds, 
The pleasing theme renew. 


“Through all eternity to Thee 

A grateful song I'll raise; 

But Oh! eternity’s too short 
To utter all Thy praise.” 


V. 
PRAYER AND TROUBLE 


“¢He will. It may not be today, 
That God Himself shall wipe our tears away, 
Nor, hope deferred, may it be yet tomorrow 
He'll take away our cup of earthly sorrow; 
But, precious promise, He has said He will, 
If we but trust Him fully—and be still. 


“We, too, as He, may fall, and die unknown; 
And e’en the place we fell be all unshown, 
But eyes omniscient will mark the spot 
Till empires perish and the world’s forgot. 
Then they who bore the yoke and drank the cup 
In fadeless glory shall the Lord raise up. 
God’s word is ever good; His will is best :— 
The yoke, the heart all broken—and then rest.” 
—Czaupius L, CuHirron. 


ROUBLE and prayer are closely related to 
each other. Prayer is of great value to 
trouble. Trouble often drives men to God 

in prayer, while prayer is but the voice of men in 
trouble. There is great value in prayer in the time 
of trouble. Prayer often delivers out of trouble, 
and still oftener gives strength to bear trouble, 
ministers comfort in trouble, and begets patience in 
the midst of trouble. Wise is he in the day of 
trouble who knows his true source of strength and 
who fails not to pray. 
47 


48 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Trouble belongs to the present state of man on 
earth. ‘“ Man that is born of a woman is of few 
days and full of trouble.” ‘Trouble is common to 
man. ‘There is no exception in any age or clime or 
station. Rich and poor alike, the learned and the 
ignorant, one and all are partakers of this sad and 
painful inheritance of the fall of man. “There 
hath no temptation taken you but such as is com- 
mon to man.” ‘The “day of trouble’? dawns on 
every one at some time in his life. “ The evil days 
come and the years draw nigh” when the heart 
feels its heavy pressure. 

That is an entirely false view of life and shows 
supreme ignorance that expects nothing but sun- 
shine and looks only for ease, pleasure and flowers. 
It is this class who are so sadly disappointed and 
surprised when trouble breaks into their lives. 
These are the ones who know not God, who know 
nothing of His disciplinary dealings with His 
people and who are prayerless. 

What an infinite variety there is in the troubles 
of life! How diversified the experiences of men in 
the school of trouble! No two people have the same 
troubles under like environments. God deals with no 
two of His children in the same way. And as God 
varies His treatment of His children, so trouble is 
varied. God does not repeat Himself. He does not 
runinarut. He has not one pattern for every child. 
Each trouble is proportioned to each child. Each 
one is dealt with according to his own peculiar case. 


TROUBLE 49 


Trouble is God’s servant, doing His will unless 
He is defeated in the execution of that will. T'rou- 
ble is under the control of Almighty God, and is one 
of His most efficient agents in fulfilling His pur- 
poses and in perfecting His saints. God’s hand is 
in every trouble which breaks into the lives of men. 
Not that He directly and arbitrarily orders every 
unpleasant experience of life. Not that He is per- 
sonally responsible for every painful and afflicting 
thing which comes into the lives of His people. 
But no trouble is ever turned loose in this world 
and comes into the life of saint or sinner, but comes 
with Divine permission, and is allowed to exist and 
do its painful work with God’s hand in it or on it, 
carrying out His gracious designs of redemption. 

All things are under Divine control. Trouble is 
neither above God nor beyond His control. It is 
not something in life independent of God. No 
matter from what source it springs nor whence it 
arises, God is sufficiently wise and able to lay His 
hand upon it without assuming responsibility for 
its origin, and work it into His plans and purposes 
concerning the highest welfare of His saints. This 
is the explanation of that gracious statement in 
Romans, so often quoted, but the depth of whose 
meaning has rarely been sounded, “ And we know 
that all things work together for good to them that 
love God.” 

Even the evils brought about by the forces of 
nature are His servants, carrying out His will and 


50 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


fulfilling His designs. God even claims the locusts, 
the cankerworm, the caterpillar are His servants, 
“My great army,” used by Him to correct His 
people and discipline them. 

Trouble belongs to the disciplinary part of the 
moral government of God. This is a life of pro- 
bation, where the human race is on probation. It 
is a season of trial. ‘Trouble is not penal in its 
nature. It belongs to what the Scriptures call . 
“chastening.” ‘Whom the Lord loveth he chast- 
eneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” 
Speaking accurately, punishment does not belong to 
this life. Punishment for sin will take place in the 
next world. God’s dealings with people in this 
world are of the nature of discipline. They are cor- 
rective processes in His plans concerning man. It 
is because of this that prayer comes in when trouble 
arises. Prayer belongs to the discipline of life. 

As trouble is not sinful in itself, neither is it the 
evidence of sin. Good and bad alike experience 
trouble. As the rain falls alike on the just and un- 
just, so drouth likewise comes to the righteous and 
the wicked. Trouble is no evidence whatever of the 
Divine displeasure. Scripture instances without 
number disprove any such idea. Job is a case in 
point, where God bore explicit testimony to his deep 
piety, and yet God permitted Satan to afflict him 
beyond any other man for wise and beneficent pur- 
poses. ‘Trouble has no power in itself to interfere 
with the relations of a saint to God. ‘‘ Who shall 


TROUBLE 51 


‘separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribula- 
tion, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or 
nakedness, or peril, or sword?” 

Three words practically the same in the processes 
of Divine discipline are found, temptation, trial and 
trouble, and yet there is a difference between them. 
Temptation is really a solicitation to evil arising 
from the devil or born in the carnal nature of man. 
Trial is testing. It is that which proves us, tests 
us, and makes us stronger and better when we sub- 
mit to the trial and work together with God in it. 
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into 
divers temptations ; knowing this, that the trying of 
your faith worketh patience.” 

Peter speaks along the same line: 


“ Wherein ye greatly rejoice, now for a season, if 
need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold tempta- 
tions; that the trial of your faith being much more 
precious than that of gold that perisheth, though it be 
tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor 
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.” 


The third word is trouble itself, which covers all 
the painful, sorrowing, and grievous events of life. 
And yet temptations and trials might really become 
troubles. So that all evil days in life might well be 
classed under the head of the “time of trouble.” 
And such days of trouble are the lot of all men. 
Enough to know that trouble, no matter from what 
source it comes, becomes in God’s hand His own 


52 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


agent to accomplish His gracious work concerning 
those who submit patiently to Him, who recognise 
Him in prayer, and who work together with God. 

Let us settle down at once to the idea that trouble 
arises not by chance, and neither occurs by what 
men call accident. ‘‘ Although affliction cometh not 
forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of 
the ground, yet man is born unto trouble as the 
sparks fly upward.” ‘Trouble naturally belongs to 
God’s moral government, and is one of His invalu- 
able agents in governing the world. 

When we realise this, we can the better under- 
stand much that is recorded in the Scriptures, and 
can have a clearer conception of God’s dealings with 
His ancient Israel. In God’s dealings with them, 
we find what is called a history of Divine Provi- 
dence, and providence always embraces trouble. 
No one can understand the story of Joseph and his 
old father Jacob unless he takes into the account 
trouble and its varied offices. God takes account of 
trouble when He urges His prophet Isaiah on 
this wise: 


“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your 
God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry 
unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her 
iniquity is pardoned.” 


There is a distinct note of comfort in the Gospel 
for the praying saints of the Lord, and He is a wise 
scribe in Divine things who knows how to minister 


TROUBLE 53 


this comfort to the broken-hearted and sad ones of 
earth. Jesus Himself said to His sad disciples, “ I 
will not leave you comfortless.” 

All the foregoing has been said that we may 
rightly appreciate the relationship of prayer to 
trouble. In the time of trouble, where does prayer 
come in? ‘The Psalmist tells us: “ Call upon me in 
the day of trouble ; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt 
glorify me.” Prayer is the most appropriate thing 
for a soul to do in the “time of trouble.” Prayer 
recognises God in the day of trouble. “It is the 
Lord; let him do what seemeth him good.” Prayer 
sees God’s hand in trouble, and prays about it. 
Nothing more truly shows us our helplessness than’ 
when trouble comes. It brings the strong man low, 
it discloses our weakness, it brings a sense of help- 
lessness. Blessed is he who knows how to turn to 
God in “ the time of trouble.” If trouble is of the 
Lord, then the most natural thing to do is to carry 
the trouble to the Lord, and seek grace and patience 
and submission. It is the time to inquire in the 
trouble, “ Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” 
How natural and reasonable for the soul, op- 
pressed, broken, and bruised, to bow low at the 
footstool of mercy and seek the face of God? 
Where could a soul in trouble more likely find solace 
than in the closet ? 

Alas! trouble does not always drive men to God 
in prayer. Sad is the case of him who, when trou- 
ble bends his spirit down and grieves his heart, yet 


54 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


knows not whence the trouble comes nor knows 
how to pray about it. Blessed is the man who is 
driven by trouble to his knees in prayer! 


“Trials must and will befall; 
But with humble faith to see 
Love inscribed upon them all— 
This is happiness to me. 


“Trials make the promise sweet, 
Trials give new life to prayer ; 
Bring me to my Saviour’s feet, 
Lay me low, and keep me there.” 


Prayer in the time of trouble brings comfort, 
help, hope, and blessings, which, while not remov- 
ing the trouble, enable the saint the better to bear 
it and to submit to the will of God. Prayer opens 
the eyes to see God’s hand in’ trouble. Prayer does 
not interpret God’s providences, but it does justify 
them and recognise God in them. Prayer enables 
us to see wise ends in trouble. Prayer in trouble 
drives us away from unbelief, saves us from doubt, 
and delivers from all vain and foolish questionings 
because of our painful experiences. Let us not lose 
sight of the tribute paid to Job when all his trou- 
bles came to the culminating point: “In all this Job 
- sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.” 

Alas! for vain, ignorant men, without faith in 
God and knowing nothing of God’s disciplinary 
processes in dealing with men, who charge God 
foolishly when troubles come, and who are tempted 


TROUBLE 55 


to “curse God.” How silly and vain are the com- 
plainings, the murmurings and the rebellion of men 
in the time of trouble! What need to read again the 
story of the Children of Israel in the wilderness! 
And how useless is all our fretting, our worrying 
over trouble, as if such unhappy doings on our part 
could change things! “And which of you with 
taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit?” 
How much wiser, how much better, how much 
easier to bear life’s troubles when we take every- 
thing to God in prayer? 

Trouble has wise ends for the praying ones, and 
these find it so. Happy is he who, like the Psalmist, 
finds that his troubles have been blessings in dis- 
guise. “It is good for me that I have been af- 
flicted, that I might learn thy statutes. I know, O 
Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou 
in faithfulness hast afflicted me.” 


“O who could bear life’s stormy doom, 
Did not Thy wing of love 
Come brightly wafting through the gloom 
Our peace branch from above. 


“Then sorrow, touched by Thee, grows bright, 
With more than rapture’s ray ; 
As darkness shows us worlds of light 
We never saw by day.” 


Of course it may be conceded that some troubles 
are really imaginary. They have no existence other 
than in the mind. Some are anticipated troubles, 


56 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


which never arrive at our door. Others are past 
troubles, and there is much folly in worrying 
over them. Present troubles are the ones | re- 
quiring attention and demanding prayer. “ Suf- 
ficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Some 
troubles are self-originated. We are their authors. 
Some of these originate involuntarily with us, some 
arise from our ignorance, some come from our 
carelessness. All this can be readily admitted with- 
out breaking the force of the statement that they are 
the subjects of prayer, and should drive us to 
prayer. What father casts off his child who cries 
to him when the little one from its own carelessness 
has stumbled and fallen and hurt itself? Does not 
the cry of the child attract the ears of the father 
even though the child be to blame for the accident? 
“Whatever things ye desire” takes in every 
event of life, even though some events we are re- 
sponsible for. 

Some troubles are human in their origin. They 
arise from second causes. ‘They originate with 
others and we are the sufferers. This is a world 
where often the innocent suffer the consequences of 
_ the acts of others. This is a part of life’s incidents. 
Who has not at some time suffered at the hands of 
others? But even these are allowed to come in the 
order of God’s providence, are permitted to break 
into our lives for beneficent ends, and may be 
prayed over. Why should we not carry our hurts, 
our wrongs and our privations, caused by the acts 


TROUBLE 57 


of others, to God in prayer? Are such things out- 
side of the realm of prayer? Are they exceptions 
to the rule of prayer? Not at all. And God can 
and will lay His hand upon all such events in answer 
to prayer, and cause them to work for us “a far 
more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” 

Nearly all of Paul’s troubles arose from wicked 
and unreasonable men. Read the story as he gives 
it in II Corinthians 11: 23-33. 

So also some troubles are directly of Satanic 
origin. Quite all of Job’s troubles were the off- 
spring of the devil’s scheme to break down Job's 
integrity, to make him charge God foolishly and to 
curse God. But are these not to be recognised in 
prayer? Are they to be excluded from God's dis- 
ciplinary processes? Job did not do so. Hear him 
in those familiar words. ‘The Lord gave, and the 
Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of 
the Lord.” 

O what a comfort to see God in all of life’s 
events! What a relief to a broken, sorrowing heart 
to see God’s hand in sorrow! What a source of 
relief is prayer in unburdening the heart in grief! 


“© Thou who driest the mourner’s tear, 
| How dark this world would be, 
If, when deceived and wounded here, 
We could not fly to Thee? 


“The friends who in our sunshine live, 
When winter comes are flown, 


58 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


And he who has but tears to give, 
Must weep those tears alone. 


“But Thou wilt heal the broken heart, 
Which, like the plants that throw 
Their fragrance from the wounded part, 
Breathes sweetness out of woe.” 


But when we survey all the sources from which 
trouble comes, it all resolves itself into two invalu- 
able truths: First, that our troubles at last are of 
the Lord. They come with His consent. He is in 
all of them, and is interested in us when they press 
and bruise us. And secondly, that our troubles, no 
matter what the cause, whether of ourselves, or men 
or devils, or even God Himself, we are warranted in 
_ taking them to God in prayer, in praying over them, 
_ and in seeking to get the greatest spiritual benefits 
out of them. 

) Prayer in the time of trouble tends to bring the 
spirit into perfect subjection to the will of God, to 
cause the will to be conformed to God’s will, and 
saves from all murmurings over our lot, and deliv- 
ets from everything like a rebellious heart or a 
spirit critical of the Lord. Prayer sanctifies trou- 
ble to our highest good. Prayer so prepares the 
heart that it softens under the disciplining hand of 
God. Prayer places us where God can bring to us 
the greatest good, spiritual and eternal. Prayer 
allows God to freely work with us and in us in the 
day of trouble. Prayer removes everything in the 


TROUBLE 59 


way of trouble, bringing to us the sweetest, the 
highest and greatest good. Prayer permits God’s 
servant, trouble, to accomplish its mission in us, 
with us and for us. 

The end of trouble is always good in the mind of 
God. If trouble fails in its mission, it is either 
because of prayerlessness or unbelief, or both. Be- 
ing in harmony with God in the dispensations of 
His providence, always makes trouble a blessing. 
The good or evil of trouble is always determined by 
the spirit in which it is received. Trouble proves a 
blessing or a curse, just according as it is received 
and treated by us. It either softens or hardens us. 
It either draws us to prayer and to God or it drives 
us from God and from the closet. ‘Trouble hard- 
ened Pharaoh till finally it had no effect on him, 
only to make him more desperate and to drive him 
farther from God. The same sun softens the wax 
and hardens the clay. The same sun melts the ice 
and dries out the moisture from the earth. 

As is the infinite variety of trouble, so also is 
there infinite variety in the relations of prayer to 
other things. How many are the things which are 
the subject of prayer! It has to do with everything 
which concerns us, with everybody with whom we 
have to do, and has to do with all times. But es- 
pecially does prayer have to do with trouble. ‘“ This 
poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and saved 
him out of all his troubles.” O the blessedness, the 
help, the comfort of prayer in the day of trouble! 


60 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


And how marvelous the promises of God to us in 
the time of trouble! 


“ Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore 
will I deliver him; I will set him on high because he 
hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I 
will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will 
deliver him and honor him.” 


“Tf pain afflict, or wrongs oppress, 
If cares distract, or fears dismay ; 
If guilt deject, if sin distress, 
In every case, still watch and pray.” 


Flow rich in its sweetness, how far-reaching in 
the realm of trouble, and how cheering to faith, are 
the words of promise which God delivers to His 
believing, praying ones, by the' mouth of Isaiah: 


“ But now, thus saith the Lord that created thee, O 
Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: 
for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy 
name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the 
waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, 
they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest 
through the fire, thou shalt not be burned: neither 
shall the flame kindle upon thee. . . . For I am the 
Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.” 


VI 


PRAYER AND TROUBLE (Continued) 


“My first message for heavenly relief went singing over 
millions of miles of space in 1869, and brought relief to my 
troubled heart. But, thanks be to Him, I have received many 
delightful and helpful answers during the last fifty years. I 
would think the commerce of the skies had gone into bank- 
ruptcy if I did not hear frequently, since I have learned how 
to ask and how to receive.”—Reryv. H. W. Hopes. 


N the New Testament there are three words 
used which embrace trouble. These are tribu- 
lation, suffering and affliction, words differing 

somewhat, and yet each of them practically meaning 
trouble of some kind. Our Lord put His disciples 
on notice that they might expect tribulation in this 
life, teaching them that tribulation belonged to this 
world, and they could not hope to escape it; that 
they would not be carried through this life on flow- 
ery beds of ease. How hard to learn this plain and 
patent lesson! “In the world ye shall have tribula- 
tion; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the 
world.” ‘There is the encouragement. As He had 
overcome the world and its tribulations, so might 
they do the same. 

Paul taught the same lesson throughout his min- 
istry, when in confirming the souls of the brethren, 


61 


62 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


and exhorting them to continue in the faith, he told 
them that “we must, through much tribulation, 
enter into the kingdom of God.” He himself knew 
this by his own experience, for his pathway was 
anything but smooth and flowery. 

He it is who uses the word “ suffering” to de- 
scribe the troubles of life, in that comforting pas- 
sage in which he contrasts life's troubles with 
the final glory of heaven, which shall be the re- 
ward of all who patiently endure the ills of Divine 
Providence : 


“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present 
time are not worthy to be compared with the glory 
which shall be revealed in us.” 


And he it is who speaks of the afflictions which 
come to the people of God in this world, and regards 
them as light as compared with the weight of glory 
awaiting all who are submissive, patient and faith- 
ful in all their troubles: 


“For our light affliction, which is but for a 
moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory.” 


But these present afflictions can work for us only 
as we co-operate with God in prayer. As God 
works through prayer, it is only through this means 
He can accomplish His highest ends for us. His 
Providence works with greatest effect with His 


TROUBLE 63 


praying ones. These know the uses of trouble 
and its gracious designs. The greatest value in 
trouble comes to those who bow lowest before the 
throne. 

Paul, in urging patience in tribulation, connects 
it directly with prayer, as if prayer alone would 
place us where we could be patient when tribulation 
comes. “ Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, 
continuing instant in prayer.” He here couples up 
tribulation and prayer, showing their close relation- 
ship and the worth of prayer in begetting and cul- 
turing patience in tribulation. In fact there can be 
no patience exemplified when trouble comes, only as 
it is secured through instant and continued prayer. 
In the school of prayer is where patience is learned 
and practiced. 

Prayer brings us into that state of grace where 
tribulation is not only endured, but where there is 
under it a spirit of rejoicing. In showing the gra- 
cious benefits of justification, in Romans 5:3, Paul 
says: 


“And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also: 
knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and pa- 
tience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope 
maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed 
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given 
unto us.” 


What a chain of graces are here set forth 
as flowing from tribulation! What successive 


64 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


steps to a high state of religious experience! 
And what rich fruits result from even painful 
tribulation ! 

To the same effect are the words of Peter in his 
First Epistle, in his strong prayer for those Chris- 
tians to whom he writes; thus showing that suffer- 
ing and the highest state of grace are closely con- 
nected; and intimating that it is through suffering 
we are to be brought to those higher regions of 
Christian experience: 


“ But the God of all grace, who hath called us into 
his eternal glory, by Christ Jesus, after that ye have 
suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen 
and settle you.” 


It is in the fires of suffering that God purifies 
His saints and brings them to the highest things. 
It is in the furnace their faith is tested, their pa- 
tience is tried, and they are developed in all those 
rich virtues which make up Christian character. It 
is while they are passing through deep waters that 
He shows how close He can come to His praying, 
believing saints. 

It takes faith of a high order and a Christian ex- 
perience far above the average religion of this day, 
to count it joy when we are called to pass through 
tribulation. God’s highest aim in dealing with His 
people is in developing Christian character. He is 
after begetting in us those rich virtues which be- 
long to our Lord Jesus Christ, He is seeking to 


TROUBLE 65 


make us like Himself. It is not so much work that 
He wants in us. It is not greatness. It is the pres- 
ence in us of patience, meekness, submission to the 
Divine will, prayerfulness which brings everything 
to Him. He seeks to beget His own image in us. 
And trouble in some form tends to do this very 
thing, for this is the end and aim of trouble. This 
is its work. This is the task it is called to perform. 
It is not a chance incident in life, but has a design 
in view, just as it has an All-wise Designer back of 
it, who makes trouble His agent to bring forth the 
largest results. 

The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews gives 
us a perfect directory of trouble, comprehensive, 
clear and worth while to be studied. Here is “ chas- 
tisement,” another word for trouble, coming from 
a Father’s hand, showing God is in all the sad and 
afflictive events of life. Here is its nature and its 
gracious design. It is not punishment in the accu- 
rate meaning of that word, but the means God em- 
ploys to correct and discipline His children in 
dealing with them on earth. ‘Then we have the fact 
of the evidence of being His people, namely, the 
presence of chastisement. ‘The ultimate end is that 
we “ may be partakers of his holiness,” which is but 
another way of saying that ‘all this disciplinary 
process is to the end that God may make us like 
Himself. What an encouragement, too, that, chas- 
tisement is no evidence of anger or displeasure on 
God’s part, but is the strong proof of His love, Let 


66 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


us read the entire directory on this important 
subject : 


“And ye have forgotten the exhortation which 
speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise 
not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when 
thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth 
he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he re- 
ceiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with 
you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father 
chasteneth not? But if ye are without chastisement, 
whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and 
not sons. 

“Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh 
which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: 
shall we not much rather be in subjection to the 
Father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few 
days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he 
for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holi- 
ness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to 
be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it 
yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them 
which are exercised thereby.” 


Just as prayer is wide in its range, taking in 
everything, so trouble is infinitely varied in its uses 
and designs. It takes trouble sometimes to arrest 
attention, to stop men in the busy rush of life, and 
to awaken them to a sense of their helplessness 
and their need and sinfulness. Not till King 
Manasseh was bound with thorns and carried 
away into a foreign land and got into deep trou- 
ble, was he awakened and brought back to God. It 


TROUBLE 67 


was then he humbled himself and began to call 
upon God. 

The Prodigal Son was independent and self- 
sufficient when in prosperity, but when money and 
friends departed, and he began to be in want, then 
it was he “ came to himself,” and decided to return 
to his father’s house, with prayer and confession on 
his lips. Many a man who has forgotten God has 
been arrested, caused to consider his ways, and 
brought to remember God and pray by trouble. 
Blessed is trouble when it accomplishes this in men! 

It is for this among other reasons that Job says: 


“Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth. 
Therefore, despise not thou the chastening of the 
Almighty. For he maketh sore, and bindeth up; he 
woundeth, and his hands maketh whole. He shall 
deliver thee in six troubles; yea, in seven there shall 
no evil touch thee.” 


One thing more might be named. ‘Trouble makes 
earth undesirable and causes heaven to loom up 
large in the horizon of hope. ‘There is a world 
where trouble never comes. But the path of tribu- 
lation leads to that world. ‘Those who are there 
went there through tribulation. What a world set 
before our longing eyes which appeals to our 
hopes, as sorrows like a cyclone sweep over us! 
Hear John, as he talks about it and those who 
are there: 


“What are these which are arrayed in white robes? 


68 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


and whence came they? ... And he said to me, 
These are they which came out of great tribulation, 
and have washed their robes and made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb... And God shall wipe 
away all tears from their eyes.” 


“ ‘There I shall bathe my weary soul, 
In seas of heavenly rest, 
And not a wave of trouble roll, 
Across my peaceful breast.” 


Oh, children of God, ye who have suffered, who 
have been sorely tried, whose sad experiences have 
often brought broken spirits and bleeding hearts, 
cheer up! God is in all your troubles, and He will 
see that all shall “ work together for good,” if you 
will but be patient, submissive and prayerful. 


VII 
PRAYER AND GOD’S WORK 


“If Jacob’s desire had been given him in time for him to 
get a good night’s sleep he might never have become the 
‘prince of prayers we know today. If Hannah’s prayer for a 
son had been answered at the time she set for herself, the 
nation might never have known the mighty man of God it 
found in Samuel. Hannah wanted only a son, but God 
wanted more. He wanted a prophet, and a saviour, and a 
ruler for His people. Some one said that ‘God had to get a 
woman before He could get a man.’ This woman He got in 
Hannah precisely by those weeks and months and years there 
came a woman with a vision like God’s, with tempered soul 
and gentle spirit and a seasoned will, prepared to be the kind 
of a mother for the kind of a man God knew the nation 
needed.”—W. E, BrEpERWOLF. 


OD has a great work on hand in this 
world. This work is involved in the plan 
of salvation. It embraces redemption and 

providence. God is governing this world, with its 
intelligent beings, for His own glory and for their 
good. What, then, is God’s work in this world? 
Rather what is the end He seeks in His great work ? 
It is nothing short of holiness of heart and life in 
the children of fallen Adam. Man is a fallen crea- 
ture, born with an evil nature, with an evil bent, 
unholy propensities, sinful desires, wicked inclina- 
tions. Man is unholy by nature, born so. “ They 
go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.” 


69 


70 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


God’s entire plan is to take hold of fallen man and 
to seek to change him and make him holy. God’s 
work is to make holy men out of unholy men. This 
is the very end of Christ coming into the world: 


“For this purpose was the Son of God manifested 
that he might destroy the works of the devil.” 


God is holy in nature and in all His ways, and He 
wants to make man like Himself. 


“As he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy 
in all manner of conversation; because it is written, 
Be ye holy, for I am holy.” 


This is being Christlike. This is following Jesus 
Christ. This is the aim of all Christian effort. 
This is the earnest, heartfelt desire of every truly 
regenerated soul. This is what is to be constantly 
and earnestly prayed for. It is that we may be 
made holy. Not that we must make ourselves holy, 
but we must be cleansed from all sin by the precious 
atoning blood of Christ, and be made holy by the 
direct agency of the Holy Spirit. Not that we are 
to do holy, but rather to be holy. Being must pre- 
cede doing. First be, then do. First, obtain a holy 
heart, then live a holy life. And for this high and 
gracious end God has made the most ample pro- 
visions in the atoning work of our Lord and 
through the agency of the Holy Spirit. | 

The work of God in the world is the implanta- 


GOD’S WORK 71 


tion, the growth and the perfection of holiness in 
His people. Keep this ever in mind. But we might 
ask just now, Is this work advancing in the Church? 
Are men and women being made holy? Is the 
present-day Church engaged in the business of 
making holy men and women? ‘This is not a vain 
and speculative question. It is practical, pertinent 
and all important. 

The present-day Church has vast machinery. 
Her activities are great, and her material prosperity 
is unparalleled. The name of religion is widely- 
spread and well-known. Much money comes into 
the Lord’s treasury and is paid out. But here is 
the question: Does the work of holiness keep pace 
with all this? Is the burden of the prayers of 
Church people to be made holy? Are our preach- 
ers really holy men? Or to go back a little further, 
are they hungering and thirsting after righteous- 
ness, desiring the sincere milk of the Word that 
they may grow thereby? Are they really seeking to 
be holy men? Of course men of intelligence are 
greatly needed in the pulpit, but prior to that, and 
primary to it, is the fact that we need holy men to 
stand before dying men and proclaim the salvation 
of God to them. 

Ministers, like laymen, and no more so than lay- 
men, must be holy men in life, in conversation and 
in temper. ‘They must be examples to the flock of 
God in all things. By their lives they are to preach 
as well as to speak. Men in the pulpit are needed 


72 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


who are spotless in life, circumspect in behaviour, 
“without rebuke and blameless in the midst of a 
crooked and perverse nation, among whom they are 
to shine in the world.” Are our preachers of this 
type of men? We are simply asking the question. 
Let the reader make up his own judgment. Is the 
work of holiness making progress among our 
preachers? 

Again let us ask: Are our leading laymen ex- 
amples of holiness? Are they seeking holiness of 
heart and life? Are they praying men, ever pray- 
ing that God would fashion them according to His 
pattern of holiness? Are their business ways with- 
out stain of sin, and their gains free from the taint 
of wrong-doing? Have they, the foundation of 
solid honesty, and does uprightness bring them into 
elevation and influence? Does business integrity 
and probity run parallel with religious activity, and 
with churchly observance? 

Then, while we are pursuing our investigation, 
seeking light as to whether the work of God among 
His people is making progress, let us ask further as 
to our women. Are the leading women of our 
churches dead to the fashions of this world, sepa- 
rated from the world, not conformed to the world’s 
maxims and customs? Are they in behaviour as 
becometh holiness, teaching the young women by 
word and life the lessons of soberness, obedience, 
and home-keeping? Are our women noted for their 
praying habits? Are they patterns of prayer? 


GOD’S WORK 73 


How searching are all these questions? And 
will any one dare say they are impertinent and out 
of place? If God’s work be to make men and 
women holy, and He has made ample provisions in 
the law of prayer of doing this very thing, why 
should it be thought impertinent and useless to pro- 
pound such personal and pointed questions as these ? 
They have to do directly with the work and with its 
progress and its perfection. They go to the very 
seat of the disease. They hit the spot. 

We might as well face the situation first as last. 
There is no use to shut our eyes to real facts. If 
the Church does not do this sort of work—if the 
Church does not advance its members in holiness of 
heart and life—then all our show of activities and 
all our display of Church work are a delusion and 
a snare. 

But let us ask as to another large and important 
class of people in our churches. They are the hope 
of the future Church. ‘To them all eyes are turned. 
Are our young men and women growing in sober- 
mindedness and reverence, and in all those graces 
which have their root in the renewed heart, which 
mark solid and permanent advance in the Divine 
life? If we are not growing in holiness, then we 
are doing nothing religious nor abiding. 

Material prosperity is not the infallible sign of 
spiritual prosperity. The former may exist while 
the latter is significantly absent. Material prosper- 
ity may easily blind the eyes of Church leaders, so 


74 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


much so that they will make it a substitute for spir- 
itual prosperity. How great the need to watch at 
that point! Prosperity in money matters does not 
signify growth in holiness. The seasons of mate- 
rial prosperity are rarely seasons of spiritual ad- 
vance, either to the individual or to the Church. 
It is so easy to lose sight of God when goods in- 
crease. It so easy to lean on human agencies and 
cease praying and relying upon God when material 
prosperity comes to the Church. 

If it be contended that the work of God is pro- 
gressing, and that we are growing in holiness, then 
some perplexing questions arise which will be hard 
to answer. If the Church is making advances on 
the lines of deep spirituality—if we are a praying 
people, noted for our prayer habits—if our people 
are hungering after holiness—then let us ask, why 
do we now have so few mighty outpourings of the 
Holy Spirit on our chief churches and our principal 
appointments? Why is it that so few of our re- 
vivals spring from the life of the pastor, who is 
noted for his deep spirituality, or the life of our 
church? Is the Lord’s hand shortened that He can- 
not save? Is His ear heavy that He cannot hear? 
Why is it that in order to have so-called revivals, 
we must have outside pressure, by the reputation 
and sensation of some renowned evangelist? ‘This 
is largely true in our larger charges and with our 
leading men. Why is it that the pastor is not suf- 
ficiently spiritual, holy and in communion with God, 


GOD’S WORK | 75 


that he cannot hold his own revival services, and 
have large outpourings of the Holy Spirit on the 
Church, the community and upon himself? ‘There 
can be but one solution for all this state of things. 
We have cultivated other things to the neglect of the 
work of holiness. We have permitted our minds to 
be pre-occupied with material things in the Church. 
Unfortunately, whether designedly or not, we have 
substituted the external for the internal. We have 
put that which is seen to the front and shut out that 
which is unseen. It is all too true as to the Church, 
that we are much further advanced in material mat- 
ters than in matters spiritual. 

But the cause of this sad state of things may be 
traced further back. It is largely due to the decay 
of prayer. For with the decline of the work of 
holiness there has come the decline of the business 
of praying. As praying and holiness go together, 
so the decline of one, means the decay of the other. 

Excuse it if we may, justify the present state of 
things if we will, yet it is all too patent that the em- 
phasis in the work of the present-day Church is not 
put on prayer. And just as this has occurred, the 
emphasis has been taken from the great work of 
God set on foot in the atonement, holiness of heart 
and life. The Church is not turning out praying 
men and women, because the Church is not intently 
engaged in the one great work of holiness. 
| At one time, John Wesley saw that there was a 
perceptible decline in the work of holiness, and he 


76 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


stopped short to inquire into the cause, and if we 
are as honest and spiritual as he was, we will now 
see the same causes operating to stay God’s work 
among us. In a letter to his brother, Charles, at 
one time, he comes directly to the point, and makes 
short, incisive work of it. Here is how he begins 
his letter: 


“What has hindered the work? I want to consider 
this. And must we not first say, we are the chief. If 
we were more holy in heart and life, thoroughly de- 
voted to God, would not all the preachers catch fire, 
and carry it with them, throughout the land? 

“Is not the next hindrance the littleness of grace 
(rather than of gifts) in a considerable part of our 
preachers? They have not the whole mind that was 
in Christ. They do not steadily walk as He walked. 
And, therefore, the hand of the Lord is stayed, though 
not altogether ; though He does work still. But it is 
not in such a degree as He surely would, were they 
holy as He that hath sent them is holy. 

“Is not the third hindrance the littleness of grace 
in the generality of our people? Therefore, they pray 
little, and with little fervency for a general blessing. 
And, therefore, their prayer has little power with God. 
It does not, as once, shut and open heaven. 

“ Add to this, that as there is much of the spirit of 
the world in their hearts, so there is much conformity 
to the world in their lives. They ought to be bright 
and shining lights, but they neither burn nor shine. 
They are not true to the rules they profess to observe. 
They are not holy in all manner of conversation. 
Nay, many of them are salt that has lost its savour, 
the little savour they once had, Wherewith then shall 


GOD’S WORK 77 


the rest of the land be seasoned? What wonder that 
their neighbours are as unholy as ever?” 


He strikes the spot. He hits the centre. He 
grades the cause. He freely confesses that he and 
Charles are the first cause, in this decline of holi- 
ness. The chief ones occupy positions of responsi- 
bility. As they go, so goes the Church. They give 
colour to the Church. They largely determine its 
character and its work. What holiness should mark 
these chief men? What zeal should ever character- 
ise them? What prayerfulness should be seen in 
them! How influential they ought to be with God! 
If the head be weak, then the whole body will feel 
the stroke. 

The pastors come next in his catalogue. When 
the chief shepherds and those who are under 
them, the immediate pastors, stay their advance 
in holiness, the panic will reach to the end of the 
line. As are the pastors, so will the poeple be as 
a rule. If the pastors are prayerless, then will the 
people follow in their footsteps. If the preacher 
be silent upon the work of holiness, then will there 
be no hungering and thirsting after holiness in the 
laymen. If the preacher be careless about ob- 
taining the highest and best God has for him in 
religious experience, then will the people take 
after him. 

One statement of Wesley needs to be repeated 
with emphasis. ‘The littleness of grace, rather than 


78 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


the smallness of gifts,—this is largely the case with 
the preachers. It may be stated as an axiom: That 
the work of God fails as a general rule, more for 
the lack of grace, than for the want of gifts. It is 
more than this. It is more than this, for a full sup- 
ply of grace brings an increase of gifts. It may be 
repeated that small results, a low experience, a low 
religious life, and pointless, powerless preaching 
always flow from a lack of grace. And a lack of 
grace flows from a lack of praying. Great grace 
comes from great praying. 


“ What is our calling’s glorious hope 
But inward holiness ? 
For this to Jesus I look up, 
I calmly wait for this. 


“T wait till He shall touch me clean, 
Shall life and power impart; 
Give me the faith that casts out sin, 
And purifies the heart.” 


In carrying on His great work in the world, God 
works through human agents. He works through 
His Church collectively and through His people in- 
dividually. In order that they may be effective 
agents, they must be “ vessels unto honour, sancti- 
fied, and meet for the Master’s use, and prepared 
unto every good work.” God works most effect- 
ively through holy men. His work makes progress 
in the hands of praying men. Peter tells us that 
husbands who might not be reached by the Word of 


GOD’S WORK 79 


God, might be won by the conversation of their 
wives. It is those who are “blameless and harm- 
less, the sons of God,” who can hold forth the word 
of life “in the midst of a crooked and perverse 
nation.” 

The world judges religion not by what the Bible 
says, but by how Christians live. Christians are the 
Bible which sinners read. These are the epistles to 
be read of all men. “ By their fruits ye shall know 
them.” ‘The emphasis, then, is to be placed upon 
holiness of life. But unfortunately in the present- 
day Church, emphasis has been placed elsewhere. 
In selecting Church workers and choosing ecclesi- 
astical officers, the quality of holiness is not con- 
sidered. ‘The praying fitness seems not to be taken 
into account, when it was just otherwise in all of 
God’s movements and in all of His plans. He 
looked for holy men, those noted for their praying 
habits. Prayer leaders are scarce. Prayer conduct 
is not counted as the highest qualification for offices 
in the Church. 


We cannot wonder that so little is accomplished pie 


in the great work in the world which God has in 
hand. ‘The fact is that it is surprising so much 
has been done with such feeble, defective agents. 
“‘ Holiness to the Lord” needs again to be written 
on the banners of the Church. Once more it needs 
to be sounded out in the ears of modern Christians. 
“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without 
which no man shall see the Lord,” 


80 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Let it be iterated and reiterated that this is the 
Divine standard of religion. Nothing short of this 
will satisfy the Divine requirement. O the danger 
of deception at this point! How near one can come 
to being right and yet be wrong! Some men can 
come very near to pronouncing the test word, 
“ Shibboleth,” but they miss it. ‘ Many will say 
unto me, Lord, Lord, in that day,’ says Jesus 
Christ, but He further states that then will He say 
unto them, “I never knew you; depart from me, ye 
that work iniquity.” 

Men can do many good things and yet not be holy 
in heart and righteous in conduct. They can do 
many good things and lack that spiritual quality of 
heart called holiness. How great the need of hear- 
ing the words of Paul guarding us against self- 
deception in the great work of personal salvation: 


“ Be not deceived ; God is not mocked: for whatso- 
ever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” 


“O may I still from sin depart; 
A wise and understanding heart, 
Jesus, to me to be given; 
And let me through thy Spirit know 
To glorify my God below, 
And find my way to heaven.” 


Vill 
PRAYER AND CONSECRATION 


“Eudamidas, a citizen of Corinth, died in poverty; but 
having two wealthy friends, Arcteus and Carixenus, left the 
following testament: In virtue of my last will, I bequeath to 
Arcteus my mother and to Charixenus my daughter to be 
taken home to their houses and supported for the remainder 
of their lives. This testament occasioned much mirth and 
laughter. The two legatees were pleased and affectionately 
executed the will. If heathens trusted each other, why should 
not I cherish a far greater confidence in my beloved Master, 
Jesus? I hereby, therefore, nominate Him my sole heir, con- 
signing to Him my soul and my children and sisters, that He 
may adopt, protect, and provide for them by His mighty 
power unto salvation. The whole residue of the estate shall 
be entrusted to His holy counsel.”—Gorrnotp. 


HEN we study the many-sidedness of 
prayer, we are surprised at the number 
of things with which it is connected. 

There is no phase of human life which it does not 
affect, and it has to do with everything affecting 
human salvation. Prayer and consecration are 
closely related. Prayer leads up to, and governs 
consecration. Prayer is precedent to consecration, 
accompanies it, and is a direct result of it. Much 
goes under the name of consecration which has no 
consecration in it. Much consecration of the pres- 
ent day is defective, superficial and spurious, worth 
nothing so far as the office and ends of conse- 


81 


82 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


cration are concerned. Popular consecration is 
sadly at fault because it has little or no prayer in 
it. No consecration is worth a thought which is 
not the direct fruit of much praying, and which 
fails to bring one into a life of prayer. Prayer is 
the one thing prominent in a consecrated life. 

Consecration is much more than a life of so- 
called service. It is a life of personal holiness, first 
of all. It is that which brings spiritual power into 
the heart and enlivens the entire inner man. Itisa 
life which ever recognises God, and a life given up 
to true prayer. 

Full consecration is the highest type of a Chris- 
tian life. It is the one Divine standard of experi- 
ence, of living and of service. It is the one thing at 
which the believer should aim. Nothing short of 
entire consecration must satisfy him. 

Never is he to be contented till he is fully, en- 
tirely the Lord’s by his own consent. His praying 
naturally and involuntarily leads up to this one act 
of his. 

Consecration is the voluntary set dedication of 
one’s self to God, an offering definitely made, and 
made without any reservation whatever. It is the 
setting apart of all we are, all we have, and all we 
expect to have or be, to God first of all. It is not 
so much the giving of ourselves to the Church, or 
the mere engaging in some one line of Church 
work. Almighty God is in view and He is the end 
of all consecration, It is a separation of one’s self 


CONSECRATION 83 


to God, a devotement of all that he is and has to a 
sacred use. Some things may be devoted to a spe- 
cial purpose, but it is not consecration in the true 
sense. Consecration has a sacred nature. It is de- 
voted to holy ends. It is the voluntary putting of 
one’s self in God’s hands to be used sacredly, holily, 
with sanctifying ends in view. 

Consecration is not so much the setting one’s 
self apart from sinful things and wicked ends, but 
rather it is the separation from worldly, secular and 
even legitimate things, if they come in conflict with 
God’s plans, to holy uses. It is the devoting of all 
we have to God for His own specific use. It is a 
separation from things questionable, or even legiti- 
mate, when the choice is to be made between the 
things of this life and the claims of God. 

The consecration which meets God’s demands 
and which He accepts is to be full, complete, with 
no mental reservation, with nothing withheld. It 
cannot be partial, any more than a whole burnt 
offering in Old Testament times could have been 
partial. The whole animal had to be offered in 
sacrifice. ‘To reserve any part of the animal would 
have seriously vitiated the offering. So to make a 
half-hearted, partial consecration is to make no con- 
secration at all, and is to fail utterly in securing the 
Divine acceptance. It involves our whole being, all 
we have and all that we are. Everything is defi- 
nitely and voluntarily placed in God’s hands for His 
supreme use. 


84 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Consecration is not all there is in holiness. Many 
make serious mistakes at this point. Consecration 
makes us relatively holy. We are holy only in the 
sense that we are now closely related to God, in 
which we were not related heretofore. Consecra- 
tion is the human side of holiness. In this sense, it 
is self-sanctification, and only in this sense. Sancti- 
fication or holiness in its truest and highest sense 1s 
Divine, the act of the Holy Spirit working in the 
heart, making it clean and putting therein in a 
higher degree the fruits of the Spirit. 

This distinction is clearly set forth and kept in 
view by Moses in “ Leviticus,” wherein he shows 
the human and the Divine side of sanctification or 
holiness : 


“ Sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be ye holy, for 
T am the Lord your God. And ye shall keep my stat- 
utes and do them; I am the Lord which sanctify you.” 


Here we are to sanctify ourselves, and then in 
the next word we are taught that it is the Lord 
which sanctifies us. God does not consecrate us to 
His service. We do not sanctify ourselves in this 
highest sense. Here is the two-fold meaning of 
sanctification, and a distinction which needs to be 
always kept in mind. 

Consecration being the intelligent, voluntary act 
of the believer, this act is the direct result of pray- 
ing. No prayerless man ever conceives the idea of 
a full consecration. Prayerlessness and consecra- 


CONSECRATION 85 


tion have nothing whatever in common. A life of 
prayer naturally leads up to full consecration. It 
leads nowhere else. In fact, a life of prayer is satis- 
fied with nothing else but an entire dedication of 
one’s self to God. Consecration recognises fully 
God’s ownership to us. It cheerfully assents to the 
truth set forth by Paul: 


“Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a 
price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and spirit, 
which are God’s.” 


And true praying leads that way. It cannot reach 
any other destination. It is bound to run into this 
depot. This is its natural result. ‘This is the sort 
of work which praying turns out. Praying makes 
consecrated people. It cannot make any other sort. 
It drives to this end. It aims at this very purpose. 

As prayer leads up to and brings forth full con- 
secration, so prayer entirely impregnates a conse- 
crated life. The prayer life and the consecrated life 
are intimate companions. They are Siamese twins, 
inseparable. Prayer enters into every phase of a 
consecrated life. A prayerless life which claims 
consecration is a misnomer, false, counterfeit. 

Consecration is really the setting apart of one’s 
self to a life of prayer. It means not only to pray, 
but to pray habitually, and to pray more effectually. 
It is the consecrated man who accomplishes most by 
His praying. God must hear the man wholly given 
up to God. God cannot deny the requests of him 


86 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


who has renounced all claims to himself, and who 
has wholly dedicated himself to God and His serv- 
ice. ‘This act of the consecrated man puts him “ on 
praying ground and pleading terms ” with God. It 
puts Him in reach of God in prayer. It places him 
where he can get hold of God, and where he can 
influence God to do things which He would not 
otherwise do. Consecration brings answers to 
prayer. God can depend upon consecrated men. 
God can afford to commit Himself in prayer to 
those who have fully committed themselves to God. 
He who gives all to God will get all from God. 
Having given all to God, he can claim all that 
God has for him. 

As prayer is the condition of full consecration, so 
prayer is the habit, the rule, of him who has dedi- 
cated himself wholly to God. Prayer is becoming 
in the consecrated life. Prayer is no strange thing 
in such a life. ‘There is a peculiar affinity between 
prayer and consecration, for both recognise God, 
both submit to God, and both have their aim and 
end in God. Prayer is part and parcel of the conse- 
crated life. Prayer is the constant, the inseparable, 
the intimate companion of consecration. They 
walk and talk together. 

There is much talk today of consecration, and 
many are termed consecrated people who know not 
the alphabet of it. Much modern consecration falls 
far below the Scripture standard. ‘There is really 
no real consecration in it, Just as there is much 


CONSECRATION 87 


praying without any real prayer in it, so there is 
much so-called consecration current, today, in the 
Church which has no real consecration in it. Much 
passes for consecration in the Church which re- 
ceives the praise and plaudits of superficial, formal 
professors, but which is wide of the mark. There 
is much hurrying to and fro, here and there, much 
fuss and feathers, much going about and doing 
many things, and those who busy themselves after 
this fashion are called consecrated men and women. 
The central trouble with all this false consecration 
is that there is no prayer in it, nor is it in any sense 
the direct result of praying. People can do many 
excellent and commendable things in the Church and 
be utter strangers to a life of consecration, just as 
they can do many things and be prayerless. 

Here is the true test of consecration. It is a life 
of prayer. Unless prayer be pre-eminent, unless 
prayer is to the front, the consecration is faulty, 
deceptive, falsely named. Does he pray? That is 
the test-question of every so-called consecrated man. 
Is he aman of prayer? No consecration is worth a 
thought if it be devoid of prayer. Yea, more—if it 
be not pre-eminently and primarily a life of prayer. 

God wants consecrated men because they can pray 
and will pray. He can use consecrated men because 
He can use praying men. As prayerless men are in 
His way, hinder Him, and prevent the success of 
His cause, so likewise unconsecrated men are use- 
less to Him, and hinder Him in carrying out His 


88 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


gracious plans, and in executing His noble purposes 
in redemption. God wants consecrated men _ be- 
cause He wants praying men. Consecration and 
prayer meet in the same man. Prayer is the tool 
with which the consecrated man works. Conse- 
crated men are the agents through whom prayer 
works. Prayer helps the consecrated man in main- 
taining his attitude of consecration, keeps him alive 
to God, and aids him in doing the work to which 
he is called and to which he has given himself. 
Consecration helps to effectual praying. Consecra- 
tion enables one to get the most out of his praying. 


“Let Him to whom we now belong 
His sovereign right assert ; 
And take up every thankful song, 
And every loving heart. 


“ He justly claims us for His own, 
Who bought us with a price; 
The Christian lives to Christ alone, 
To Christ alone he dies.” 


We must insist upon it that the prime purpose of 
consecration is not service in the ordinary sense of 
that word. Service in the minds of not a few 
means nothing more than engaging in some of the 
many forms of modern Church activities. There 
are a multitude of such activities, enough to engage 
the time and mind of any one, yea, even more than 
enough. Some of these may be good, others not so 
good. The present-day Church is filled with ma- 


CONSECRATION 89 


chinery, organisations, committees and societies, so 
much so that the power it has is altogether insuf- 
ficient to run the machinery, or to furnish life 
sufficient to do all this external work. Consecration 
has a much higher and nobler end than merely to 
expend itself in these external things. 

Consecration aims at the right sort of service— 
the Scriptural kind. It seeks to serve God, but in 
entirely a different sphere than that which is in the 
minds of present-day Church leaders and workers. 
The very first sort of service mentioned by Zach- 
ariah, father of John the Baptist, in his wonderful 
prophecy and statement in Luke 1:74, was thus: 


“That he would grant unto us, that we, being de- 
livered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve 
him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all 
the days of our life.” 


Here we have the idea of “ serving God in holi- 
ness and righteousness all the days of our life.” 

And the same kind of service is mentioned in 
Luke’s strong tribute to the father and mother of 
John the Baptist before the latter’s birth: 


* And they were both righteous before God, walk- 
ing in all the commandments and ordinances of the 
Lord blameless.” 


And Paul, in writing to the Philippians, strikes 
the same keynote in putting the emphasis on blame- 
lessness of life: 


90 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


“Do all things without murmurings and disputings, 
that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of 
God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and 
perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the 
world; holding forth the word of life.” 


We must mention a truth which is strangely 
overlooked in these days by what are called personal 
workers, that in the Epistles of Paul and others, it 
is not what are called Church activities which are 
brought to the front, but rather the personal life. 
It is good behaviour, righteous conduct, holy living, 
godly conversation, right tempers—things which 
belong primarily to the personal life in religion. 
Everywhere this is emphasised, put in the forefront, 
made much of and insisted on. Religion first of all 
puts one to living right. Religion shows itself in 
the life. Thus is religion to prove its reality, its 
sincerity and its Divinity. 


“So let our lips and lives express 
The holy Gospel we profess; 
So let our works and virtues shine 
To prove the doctrine all Divine. 


“Thus shall we best proclaim abroad 
The honors of our Saviour God; 
When the salvation reigns within 
And grace subdues the power of sin.” 


The first great end of consecration is holiness of 
heart and of life. It is to glorify God, and this can 
be done in no more effectual way than by a holy 


CONSECRATION 91 


life flowing from a heart cleansed from all sin. The 
great burden of heart pressed on every one who 
bceomes a Christian lies right here. This he is to 
ever keep in mind, and to further this kind of life 
and this kind of heart, he is to watch, to pray, and 
to bend all his diligence in using all the means of 
grace. He who is truly and fully consecrated, lives 
a holy life. He seeks after holiness of heart. Is not 
satisfied without it. For this very purpose he con- 
secrates himself to God. He gives himself entirely 
over to God in order to be holy in heart and in life. 

As holiness of heart and of life is thoroughly im- 
pregnated with prayer, so consecration and prayer 
are closely allied in personal religion. It takes 
prayer to bring one into such a consecrated life of 
holiness to the Lord, and it takes prayer to maintain 
such a life. Without much prayer, such a life of 
holiness will break down. Holy people are praying 
people. Holiness of heart and life puts people to 
praying. Consecration puts people to praying in 
earnest. 

Prayerless people are strangers to anything like 
holiness of heart and cleanness of heart. Those 
who are unfamiliar with the closet are not at all 
interested in consecration and holiness. Holiness 
thrives in the place of secret prayer. The environ- 
ments of the closet of prayer are favourable to its 
being and its culture. In the closet holiness is 
found. Consecration brings one into holiness of 
heart, and prayer stands hard by when it is done. 


92 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


The spirit of consecration is the spirit of prayer. 
The law of consecration is the law of prayer. Both 
laws work in perfect harmony without the slightest 
jar or discord. Consecration is the practical expres- 
sion of true prayer. People who are consecrated 
are known by their praying habits. Consecration 
thus expresses itself in prayer. He who is not in- 
terested in prayer has no interest in consecration. 
Prayer creates an interest in consecration, then 
prayer brings one into a state of heart where conse- 
cration is a subject of delight, bringing joy of heart, 
satisfaction of soul, contentment of spirit. ‘The 
consecrated soul is the happiest soul. ‘There is no 
friction whatever between him who is fully given 
over to God and God’s will. ‘There is perfect har- 
mony between the will of such a man and God, and 
His will. And the two wills being in perfect accord, 
this brings rest of soul, absence of friction, and the 
presence of perfect peace. 


“Lord, in the strength of grace, 
With a glad heart and free, 
Myself, my residue of days, 
I consecrate to Thee. 


“Thy ransomed servant, I 
Restore to Thee Thy own; 
And from this moment, live or die, 
To serve my God alone.” 


IX 


PRAYER AND A DEFINITE RELIGIOUS 
STANDARD 


“The Angel Gabriel described Him as ‘that holy thing’ 
before He was born. As He was, so are we, in our measure, 
in this world.’—Dr. ALEXANDER WHYTE. 


UCH of the feebleness, barrenness and 
paucity of religion results from the fail- 
ure to have a Scriptural and reasonable 

standard in religion, by which to shape character 
and measure results; and this largely results from 
the omission of prayer or the failure to put prayer 
in the standard. We cannot possibly mark our ad- 
vances in religion if there is no point to which we 
are definitely advancing. Always there must be 
something definite before the mind’s eye at which 
we are aiming and to which we are driving. We 
cannot contrast shapeliness with unshapeliness if 
there be no pattern after which to model. Neither 
can there be inspiration if there be no high end to 
stimulate us. 

Many Christians are disjointed and aimless be- 
cause they have no pattern before them after which 
conduct and character are to be shaped. They just 
move on aimlessly, their minds in a cloudy state, 


93 


94 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


no pattern in view, no point in sight, no standard 
after which they are striving. There is no standard 
by which to value and gauge their efforts. No 
magnet is there to fill their eyes, quicken their steps, 
and to draw them and keep them steady. 

All this vague idea of religion grows out of loose 
notions about prayer. That which helps to make 
the standard of religion clear and definite is prayer. 
That which aids in placing that standard high is 
prayer. The praying ones are those who have 
something definite in view. In fact prayer itself is 
a very definite thing, aims at something specific, and 
has a mark at which it aims. Prayer aims at the 
most definite, the highest and the sweetest religious 
experience. ‘The praying ones want all that God 
has in store for them. ‘They are not satisfied with 
anything like a low religious life, superficial, vague 
and indefinite. The praying ones are not only after 
a “ deeper work of grace,” but want the very deep- 
est work of grace possible and promised. They are 
not after being saved from some sin, but saved from 
all sin, both inward and outward. They are after 
not only deliverance from sinning, but from sin 
itself, from its being, its power and its pollution. 
They are after holiness of heart and life. 

Prayer believes in, and seeks for the very highest 
religious life set before us in the Word of God. 
Prayer is the condition of that life. Prayer points 
out the only pathway to such a life. The standard 
of a religious life is the standard of prayer. Prayer 


A DEFINITE RELIGIOUS STANDARD 95 


is so vital, so essential, so far-reaching, that it enters 
into all religion, and sets the standard clear and defi- 
nite before the eye. The degree of our estimate of 
prayer fixes our ideas of the standard of a religious 
life. ‘The standard of Bible religion is the standard 
of prayer. The more there is of prayer in the life, 
the more definite and the higher our notions of 
religion. 

The Scriptures alone make the standard of life 
and experience. When we make our own standard, 
there is delusion and falsity for our desires, conven- 
ience and pleasure form the rule, and that is always 
a fleshly and a low rule. From it, all the funda- 
mental principles of a Christly religion are left out. 
Whatever standard of religion which makes in it 
provision for the flesh, is unscriptural and hurtful. 

Nor will it do to leave it to others to fix the 
standard of religion for us. When we allow others 
to make our standard of religion, it is generally 
deficient because in imitation, defects are trans- 
ferred to the imitator more readily than virtues, and 
a second edition of a man is marred by its defects. 

The most serious damage in thus determining 
what religion is by what others say, is in allowing 
current opinion, the contagion of example, the grade 
of religion current among us, to shape our religious 
opinions and characters. Adoniram Judson once 
wrote to a friend, ‘‘ Let me beg you, not to rest con- 
tented with the commonplace religion that is now 
so prevalent.” 


96 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Commonplace religion is pleasing to flesh and 
blood. ‘There is no self-denial in it, no cross bear- 
ing, no self-crucifixion. It is good enough for our 
neighbours. Why should we be singular and 
straight-laced? Others are living on a low plane, 
on a compromising level, living as the world lives. 
Why should we be peculiar, zealous of good works ? 
Why should we fight to win heaven while so many 
are sailing there on “ flowery beds of ease”? Are 
the easy-going, careless, sauntering crowd, living 
prayerless lives, going to heaven? Is heaven a fit 
place for non-praying, loose living, ease loving 
people? That is the supreme question. 

Paul gives the following caution about making 
for ourselves the jolly, pleasure-seeking religious 
company all about us the standard of our meas- 
urement : 


“ For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or 
compare ourselves with some that commend them- 
selves ; but they, measuring themselves by themselves, 
and comparing themselves among themselves, are not 
wise. But we will not boast of things without our 
measure, but according to the measure of the rule 
which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach 
even unto you.” 


No standard of religion is worth a moment’s con- 
sideration which leaves prayer out of the account. 
No standard is worth any thought which does not 
make prayer the main thing in religion. So neces- 
sary is prayer, so fundamental in God’s plan, so all 


A DEFINITE RELIGIOUS STANDARD 97 


important to everything like a religious life, that it 
enters into all Bible religion. Prayer itself is a 
standard, definite, emphatic, Scriptural. A life of 
prayer is the Divine rule. ‘This is the pattern, 
just as our Lord, being a man of prayer, is the one 
pattern for us after whom to copy. Prayer fash- 
ions the pattern of a religious life. Prayer is the 
measure. Prayer molds the life. 

The vague, indefinite, popular view of religion 
has no prayer in it. In its programme, prayer is 
entirely left out or put so low down and made so 
insignificant, that it hardly is worth mentioning. 
Man’s standard of religion has no prayer about it. 

It is God’s standard at which we are to aim, not 
man’s. . It is not the opinions of men, not what they 
say, but what the Scriptures say. Loose notions of 
religion grow out of low notions of prayer. Pray- 
erlessness begets loose, cloudy and indefinite views 
of what religion is. Aimless living and prayerless- 
ness go hand in hand. Prayer sets something defi- 
nite in the mind. Prayer seeks after something 
specific. ‘Ihe more definite our views as to the 
nature and need of prayer, the more definite will be 
our views of Christian experience and right living, 
and the less vague our views of religion. A low 
standard of religion lives hard by a low standard 
of praying. 

Everything in a religious life depends upon being 
definite. ‘The definiteness of our religious experi- 
ences and of our living will depend upon the defi- 


98 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


niteness of our views of what religion is and of the 
things of which it consists. 

The Scriptures ever set before us the one stand- 
ard of full consecration to God. ‘This is the Divine 
rule. This is the human side of this standard. The 
sacrifice acceptable to God must be a complete one, 
entire, a whole burnt offering. This is the measure 
laid down in God’s Word. Nothing less than this 
can be pleasing to God. Nothing half-hearted can 
please Him. “ A living sacrifice,” holy, and perfect 
in all its parts, is the measurement of our service to 
God. A full renunciation of self, a free recogni- 
tion of God’s right to us, and a sincere offering 
of all to Him—this is the Divine requirement. 
Nothing indefinite in that. Nothing is in that 
which is governed by the opinions of others or 
affected by how men live about us. 

And while a life of prayer is embraced in such 
a full consecration, at the same time prayer leads 
up to the point where a complete consecration is 
made to God. Consecration is but the silent ex- 
pression of prayer. And the highest religious 
standard is the measure of prayer and self- 
dedication to God. ‘The prayer-life and the conse- 
crated life are partners in religion. They are so 
closely allied they are never separated. The prayer 
life is the direct fruit of entire consecration to God. 
Prayer is the natural outflow of a really consecrated 
life. ‘The measure of consecration is the measure 
of real prayer. No consecration is pleasing to God 


‘A DEFINITE RELIGIOUS STANDARD 99 


which is not perfect in all its parts, just as no burnt 
offering of a Jew was ever acceptable to God unless 
it was a “ whole burnt offering.” And a consecra- 
tion of this sort, after this Divine measurement, has 
in it as a basic principle, the business of praying. 
Consecration is made to God. Prayer has to do 
with God. Consecration is putting one’s self en- 
tirely at the disposal of God. And God wants and 
commands all His consecrated ones to be praying 
ones. ‘This is the one definite standard at which 
we must aim. Lower than this we cannot afford 
to seek. 

A Scriptural standard of religion includes a clear 
religious experience. Religion is nothing if not ex- 
perimental. Religion appeals to the inner con- 
sciousness. It is an experience if anything at all, 
and an experience in addition to a religious life. 
There is the internal part of religion as well as the 
external. Not only are we to “ work out our sal- 
vation with fear and trembling,” but “ it is God that 
worketh in us to will and do of His good pleasure.” 
There is a “ good work in you,” as well as a life 
outside to be lived. The new birth is a definite 
Christian experience, proved by infallible marks, 
appealing to the inner consciousness. ‘The witness 
of the Spirit is not an indefinite, vague something, 
but is a definite, clear inward assurance given by the 
Holy Spirit that we are the children of God. In 
fact everything belonging to religious experience is 
clear and definite, bringing conscious joy, peace and 


100 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


love. And this is the Divine standard of religion, 
a standard attained by earnest, constant prayer, and 
a religious experience kept alive and enlarged by 
the same means of prayer. 

An end to be gained, to which effort is to be di- 
rected, is important in every pursuit in order to give 
unity, energy and steadiness to it. In the Christian 
life, such an end is all important. Without a high 
standard before us to be gained, for which we are 
earnestly seeking, lassitude will unnerve effort, and 
past experience will taint or exhale into mere senti- 
ment, or be hardened into cold, loveless principle. 

We must go on. “ Therefore, leaving the prin- 
ciples of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto 
perfection.” ‘The present ground we occupy must 
be held by making advances, and all the future must 
be covered and brightened by it. In religion, we 
must not only go on. We must know where we are 
going to. ‘This is all important. It is essential that 
in going on in religious experience, we have some- 
thing definite in view, and strike out for that one 
point. ‘To ever go on and not to know to which 
place we are going, is altogether too vague and in- 
definite, and is like a man whg starts out on a jour- 
ney and does not have any de§tination in view. It 
is important that we lose not sight of the starting 
point in a religious life, and that we measure the 
steps already trod. But it is likewise necessary that 
the end be kept in view and that the steps necessary 
to reach the standard be always in the eye. 


Xx 


PRAYER BORN OF COMPASSION 


“Open your New ‘Testament, take it with you to your 
knees, and set Jesus Christ out of it before you. Are you 
like David in the sixty-third Psalm? Is your soul thirsting 
-for God, and is your flesh longing for God in a dry and 
thirsty land where no water is? Then set Jesus at the well 
of Samaria before the eyes of your thirsty heart. And, again 
set Him before your heart when He stood on the last day, 
that great day of the feast, and cried, saying, ‘If any man 
thirst let him come to me and drink.’ Or, are you like David 
after the matter of Uriah? ‘For, day and night, thy hand 
was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drouth 
of summer.’ Then set Him before you who says: ‘I am not 
come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. They 
that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick, 
... Or are you the unhappy father of a prodigal son? 
Then, set your Father in heaven always before you: and set 
the Son of God always before you as He composes and 
preaches the parable of all parables for you and your son.” 

—Dr. ALEXANDER WHYTE. 


E speak here more particularly of spiritual 
compassion, that which is born in a re- 
newed heart, and which finds hospitality 

there. This compagsion has in it the quality of 

mercy, is of the nature of pity, and moves the soul 
with tenderness of feeling for others. Compassion 
is moved at the sight of sin, sorrow and suffering. 

It stands at the other extreme to indifference of 

spirit to the wants and woes of others, and is far 


101 


102 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


removed from insensibility and hardness of heart, 
in the midst of want and trouble and wretchedness. 
Compassion stands besides sympathy for others, is 
interested in them, and is concerned about them. 

That which excites and develops compassion and 
puts it to work, is the sight of multitudes in want 
and distress, and helpless to relieve themselves. 
Helplessness especially appeals to compassion. 
Compassion is silent but does not remain secluded. 
It goes out at the sight of trouble, sin and need. 
Compassion runs out in earnest prayer, first of all, 
for those for whom it feels, and has a sympathy for 
them. Prayer for others is born of a sympathetic 
heart. Prayer is natural and' almost spontaneous 
when compassion is begotten in the heart. Prayer 
belongs to the compassionate man. 

There is a certain compassion which belongs to 
the natural man, which expends its force in simple 
gifts to those in need, not to be despised. But spir- 
itual compassion, the kind born in a renewed heart, 
which is Christly in its nature, is deeper, broader 
and more prayerlike. Christly compassion always 
moves to prayer. This sort of compassion goes 
beyond the relief of mere bodily wants, and saying, 
“‘ Be ye warmed—be ye clothed.” It reaches deeper 
down and goes much farther. _ 

Compassion is not blind. Rather we should say, 
that compassion is not born of blindness. He who 
has compassion of soul has eyes, first of all, to see 
the things which excite compassion. He who has 


BORN OF COMPASSION 103 


no eyes to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the 
wants and woes of humanity, will never have com- 
passion for humanity. It is written of our Lord 
that “ when he saw the multitudes, he was moved 
with compassion on them.” First, seeing the multi- 
tudes, with their hunger, their woes and their help- 
less condition, then compassion. ‘Then prayer for 
the multitudes. Hard is he, and far from being 
Christlike, who sees the multitudes, and is un- 
moved at the sight of their sad state, their unhappi- 
ness and their peril. He has no heart of prayer 
for men. 

Compassion may not always move men, but is 
always moved toward men. Compassion may not 
always turn men to God, but it will, and does, turn 
God to man. And where it is most helpless to 
relieve the needs of others, it can at least break out 
into prayer to God for others. Compassion is never 
indifferent, selfish, and forgetful of others. Com- 
passion has alone to do with others. The fact 
that the multitudes were as sheep having no shep- 
herd, was the one thing which appealed to our 
Lord’s compassionate nature. Then their hunger 
moved Him, and the sight of the sufferings and 
diseases of these multitudes stirred the pity of 
His heart. 


“Father of mercies, send Thy grace 
All powerful from above, 
To form in our obedient souls 
The image of Thy love, 


104 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


“O may our sympathising breasts 
That generous pleasure know; 
Kindly to share in others’ joy, 
And weep for others’ woe.” 


But compassion has not alone to do with the body 
and its disabilities and needs. ‘The soul’s distress- 
ing state, its needs and danger all appeal to compas- 
sion. The highest state of grace is known by the 
infallible mark of compassion for poor sinners. 
This sort of compassion belongs to grace, and sees 
not alone the bodies of men, but their immortal 
spirits, soiled by sin, unhappy in their condition 
without God, and in imminent peril of being for- 
ever lost. When compassion beholds this sight of 
dying men hurrying to the bar of God, then it is 
that it breaks out into intercessions for sinful men. 
Then it is that compassion speaks out after this 
fashion: 


“ But feeble my compassion proves, 
And can but weep where most it loves; 
Thy own all saving arm employ, 
And turn these drops of grief to joy.” 


The Prophet Jeremiah declares this about God, 
giving the reason why sinners are not consumed 
by His wrath: 


“Tt is of the Lord’s mercies we are not pepe 
because his compassions fail not.” 


BORN OF COMPASSION 105 


And it is this Divine quality in us which makes 
us so much like God. So we find the Psalmist de- 
scribing the righteous man who is pronounced 
blessed by God: “ He is gracious and full of com- 
passion, and righteous.” | 

And as giving great encouragement to penitent 
praying sinners, the Psalmist thus records some of 
the striking attributes of the Divine character: 
“The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, 
slow to anger, and of great mercy.” 

It is no wonder, then, that we find it recorded 
several times of our Lord while on earth that “he 
was moved with compassion.” Can any one doubt 
that His compassion moved Him to pray for those 
suffering, sorrowing ones who came across His 
pathway? 

Paul was wonderfully interested in the religious 
welfare of his Jewish brethren, was concerned over 
them, and his heart was strangely warmed with 
tender compassion for their salvation, even though 
mistreated and sorely persecuted by them. In writ- 
ing to the Romans, we hear him thus express 
himself: 


“T say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience 
also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that 1 
have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my 
heart; for I could wish that myself were accursed for 
my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” 


What marvellous compassion is here described 


106 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


for Paul’s own nation! What wonder that a little 
later on he records his desire and prayer: 


“ Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for 
israel is that they might be saved.” 


We have an interesting case in Matthew which 
gives us an account of what excited so largely the 
compassion of our Lord at one time: 


“ But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved 
with compassion on them, because they fainted, and 
were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. 
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is 
plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye there- 
fore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth 
labourers into his harvest.” 


It seems from parallel statements that our Lord 
had called His disciples aside to rest awhile, ex- 
hausted as He and they were by the excessive drafts 
on them, by the ceaseless contact with the persons 
who were ever coming and going, and by their ex- 
haustive toil in ministering to the immense multi- 
tudes. But the multitudes precede Him, and instead 
of finding wilderness-solitude, quiet and repose, He 
finds great multitudes eager to see and hear, and to 
be healed. His compassions are moved. ‘The rip- 
ened harvests need labourers. He did not call these 
labourers at once, by sovereign authority, but 
charges the disciples to betake themselves to God in 


BORN OF COMPASSION 107 


prayer, asking Him to send forth labourers into His 
harvest. 

Here is the urgency of prayer enforced by the 
compassions of our Lord. It is prayer born of 
compassion for perishing humanity. Prayer is 
pressed on the Church for labourers to be sent into 
the harvest of the Lord. The harvest will go to 
waste and perish without the labourers, while the 
labourers must be God-chosen, God-sent, and God- 
commissioned. But God does not send these la- 
bourers into His harvest without prayer. The 
failure of the labourers is owing to the failure of 
prayer. ‘The scarcity of labourers in the harvest is 
due to the fact that the Church fails to pray for 
labourers according to His command. 

The ingathering of the harvests of earth for the 
granaries of heaven is dependent on the prayers of 
God’s people. Prayer secures the labourers suffi- 
cient in quantity and in quality for all the needs of 
the harvest. God’s chosen labourers, God’s en- 
dowed labourers, and God’s thrust-forth labourers, 
are the only ones who will truly go, filled with 
~ Christly compassion and endued with Christly 
power, whose going will avail, and these are secured 
by prayer. Christ’s people on their knees with 
Christ’s compassion in their hearts for dying men 
and for needy souls, exposed to eternal peril, is the 
pledge of labourers in numbers and character to 
meet the wants of earth and the purposes of 
heaven. 


108 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


God is sovereign of the earth and of heaven, and 
the choice of labourers in His harvest He delegates 
to no one else. Prayer honours Him as sovereign 
and moves Him to His wise and holy selection. 
We will have to put prayer to the front ere the fields 
of paganism will be successfully tilled for Christ. 
God knows His men, and He likewise knows full 
well His work. Prayer gets God to send forth the 
best men and the most fit men and the men best 
qualified to work in the harvest. Moving the 
missionary cause by forces this side of God has 
been its bane, its weakness and its failure. Com- 
passion for the world of sinners, fallen in Adam, 
but redeemed in Christ will'move the Church to 
pray for them and stir the Church to pray the 
Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers into 
the harvest. 


“Tord of the harvest hear 
Thy needy servants’ cry; 
Answer our faith’s effectual prayer, 
And all our wants supply. 


“ Convert and send forth more 
Into Thy Church abroad ; 
And let them speak Thy word of power, 
As workers with their God.” 


What a comfort and what hope there is to fill our 
breasts when we think of one in Heaven who ever 
liveth to intercede for us, because “His compas- 
sion fails not!’’ Above everything else, we have a 


BORN OF COMPASSION 109 


compassionate Saviour, one “ who can have com- 
passion on the ignorant, and on them who are out 
of the way, for that he himself is compassed about 
with infirmity.” ‘The compassion of our Lord well 
fits Him for being the Great High Priest of Adam’s 
fallen, lost and helpless race. | 

And if He is filled with such compassion that it 
moves Him at the Father’s right hand to intercede 
for us, then by every token we should have the 
same compassion on the ignorant and those out of 
the way, exposed to Divine wrath, as would move 
us to pray for them. Just in so far as we are com- 
passionate will we be prayerful for others. Com- 
passion does not expend its force in simply saying, 
“Be ye warmed; be ye clothed,” but drives us to 
our knees in prayer for those who need Christ and 
His grace. 


“The Son of God in tears 
The wondering angels see; 
Be thou astonished, O my soul! 
He shed those tears for thee. 


“He wept that we might weep ; 
Each sin demands a tear; 
In heaven alone no sin is found, 
And there’s no weeping there.” 


Jesus Christ was altogether man. While He was 
the Divine Son of God yet at the same time, He was 
the human Son of God. Christ had a pre-eminently 
human side, and, here, compassion reigned. He 


110 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER> 


was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. 
At one time how the flesh seems to have weakened 
under the fearful strain upon Him, and how He 
must have inwardly shrunk under the pain and pull! 
Looking up to heaven, He prays, “ Father, save me 
from this hour.” How the spirit nerves and holds 
—‘‘ but for this cause came I to this hour.” Only 
he can solve this mystery who has followed His 
Lord in straits and gloom and pain, and realised 
that the “spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” 

All this but fitted our Lord to be a compassionate 
Saviour. It is no sin to feel the pain and realise the 
darkness on the path into which God leads. It is 
only human to cry out against the pain, the terror, 
and desolation of that hour. It is Divine to cry out 
to God in that hour, even while shrinking and sink- 
ing down, “ For this cause came I unto this hour.” 
Shall I fail through the weakness of the flesh? No. 
“ Father, glorify thy name.” How strong it makes 
us, and how true, to have one pole star to guide us 
to the glory of God! 


XI 


- CONCERTED PRAYER 


“ A’ tourist, in climbing an Alpine summit, finds himself 
tied by a strong rope to his trusty guide, and to three of his 
fellow-tourists. As they skirt a perilous precipice he cannot 
pray, ‘Lord, hold up my goings in a safe path, that my foot- 
steps slip not, but as to my guide and companions, they must 
look out for themselves.’ The only proper prayer in such a 
case is, ‘Lord, hold up our goings in a safe path; for if one 
slips all of us may perish.’”—H. Cray TRUMBULL. 


HE pious Quesnel says that “God is found 
in union and agreement. Nothing is more 
efficacious than this in prayer.” 

Intercessions combine with prayers and suppli- 
cations. ‘The word does not mean necessarily 
prayer in relation to others. It means a coming 
together, a falling in with a most intimate friend 
for free, unrestrained communion. It implies 
‘prayer, free, familiar and bold. 

Our Lord deals with this question of the concert 
of prayer in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew. 
He deals with the benefit and energy resulting from 
the aggregation of prayer forces. The prayer prin- 
ciple and the prayer promise will be best understood 
in the connection in which it was made by our 
Lord: 

111 


112 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


“Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against 
thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him 
alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy 
brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with 
thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or 
three witnesses, every word may be established. 

“ And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto 
the church; but if he neglect to hear the church, let 
him be unto thee as an heathen and a publican. 

“ Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind 
on earth, shall be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever ye 
shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven. Again 
I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth 
as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be 
done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For 
where two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them.” 


This represents the Church in prayer to enforce 
discipline in order that its members who have been 
overtaken by faults, may yield readily to the discip- 
linary process. In addition, it is the Church called 
together in a concert of prayer in order to repair 
the waste and friction ensuing upon the cutting off 
of a Church offender. This last direction as to a 
concert of prayer is that the whole matter may be 
referred to Almighty God for His approval and 
ratification. 

All this means that the main, the concluding and 
the all powerful agency in the Church is prayer, 
whether it be, as we have seen in Matthew, 9th chap- 
ter, to thrust out labourers into God’s earthly har- 
vest fields, or to exclude from the Church a violator 


CONCERTED PRAYER 113 


of unity, law and order, who will neither listen to 
his brethren nor repent and confess his fault. 

It means that Church discipline, now a lost art 
in the modern Church, must go hand in hand with 
prayer, and that the Church which has no disposi- 
tion to separate wrong doers from the Church, and 
which has no excommunication spirit for incorrig- 
ible offenders against law and order, will have no 
communication with God. Church purity must pre- 
cede the Church’s prayers. The unity of discipline 
in the Church precedes the unity of prayers by the 
Church. 

Let it be noted with emphasis that a Church 
which is careless of discipline will be careless in 
praying. A Church which tolerates evil doers in 
its communion, will cease to pray, will cease to pray 
with agreement, and will cease to be a Church gath- 
ered together in prayer in Christ’s name. 

This matter of Church discipline is an important 
one in the Scriptures. ‘The need of watchfulness 
over the lives of its members belongs to the Church 
of God. The Church is an organization for mutual 
help, and it is charged with the watch care of all 
of its members. Disorderly conduct cannot be 
passed by unnnoticed. ‘The course of procedure in 
such cases is clearly given in the eighteenth chapter. 
of Matthew, which has been heretofore referred to. 
Furthermore, Paul, in Galatians 6:1, gives explicit 
directions as to those who fall into sin in the 
Church : 


114 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye 
which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit 
of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be 
tempted.” 


The work of the Church is not alone to seek 
members but it is to watch over and guard them 
after they have entered the Church. And if any 
are overtaken by sin, they must be sought out, and 
if they cannot be cured of their faults, then ex- 
cision must take place. This is the doctrine our 
Lord lays down. 

It is somewhat striking that the Church at 
Ephesus, (Rev. 2) though it had left its first love, 
and had sadly declined in vital godliness and in 
those things which make up spiritual life, yet it 
receives credit for this good quality: “Thou canst 
not bear them that are evil.” 

While the Church at Pergamos was admonished 
because it had there among its membership those 
who taught such hurtful doctrines that were a 
stumbling-block to others. And not so much that 
such characters were in the Church, but that they 
were tolerated. The impression is that the Church 
leaders were blind to the presence of such hurtful 
characters, and hence were indisposed to administer 
discipline. This indisposition was an unfailing 
sign of prayerlessness in the membership. ‘There 
was no union of prayer effort looking to cleansing 
the Church and keeping it clean. 

“his disciplinary idea stands out prominently in 


CONCERTED PRAYER 115 


the Apostle Paul’s writings to the Churches. The 
Church at Corinth had a notorious case of fornica- 
tion where a man had married his step-mother, and 
this Church had been careless about this iniquity. 
Paul rather sharply reproved this Church and gave 
explicit command to this effect: “Therefore put 
away from among yourselves that wicked person.” 
Here was concert of action on the part of praying 
people demanded by Paul. 

As good a Church as that at Thessalonica needed 
instruction and caution on this matter of looking 
after disorderly persons. So we hear Paul saying 
unto them: 


“ Now we command you, brethren, in the name of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves 
from every brother that walketh disorderly.” 


Mark you. It is not the mere presence of dis- 
orderly persons in a Church which merits the dis- 
pleasure of God. It is when they are tolerated 
under the mistaken plea of “ bearing with them,” 
and no steps are taken either to cure them of their 
evil practices or exclude them from the fellowship 
of the Church. And this glaring neglect on the part 
of the Church of its wayward members, is but a sad 
sign of a lack of praying, for a praying Church, 
given to mutual praying, agreement praying, is keen 
to discern when a brother is overtaken in a fault, 
and seeks either to restore him, or to cut him off 
if he be incorrigible. 


116 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Much of this dates back to the lack of spiritual 
vision on the part of Church leaders. ‘The Lord by 
the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah once asked the very 
~ pertinent, suggestive question, “ And who is blind © 
but my servant?” ‘This blindness in leadership in 
the Church is no more patent than in this question 
of seeing evil doers in the Church, in caring for 
them, and when the effort to restore them fails, to 
withdraw fellowship from them, and let them be 
“as a heathen man and a publican.” ‘The truth is 
there is such a lust for members in the Church in 
these modern times, that the officials and preachers 
have entirely lost sight of the members who have 
violated baptismal covenants, and who are living in 
open disregard of God’s Word. ‘The idea now is 
quantity in membership, not quality. The purity 
of the Church is put in the background in the craze 
to secure numbers, and to pad the Church rolls and 
make large figures in statistical columns. Prayer, 
much prayer, mutual prayer, would bring the 
Church back to Scriptural standards, and would 
purge the Church of many wrongdoers, while it 
might cure not a few of their evil lives. 

Prayer and Church discipline are not new revela- 
tions of the Christian dispensation. ‘These two 
_ things had a high place in the Jewish Church. In- 
stances are too numerous to mention all of them. 
Ezra is a case in point. When he returned from the 
captivity, he found a sad and distressing condition 
of things among the Lord’s people who were left 


CONCERTED PRAYER 117 


in the land. They had not separated themselves 
from the surrounding heathen people, and had 
intermarried with them, contrary to Divine com- 
mands. And those high in the Church were in- 
volved, the priests and the Levites with others. 
Ezra was greatly moved at the account given him, 
and rent his garments and wept and prayed. Evil 
doers in the Church did not meet his approval, nor 
did he shut his eyes to them nor excuse them, 
neither did he compromise the situation. When he 
had finished confessing the sins of the people and 
his praying, the people assembled themselves before 
him and joined him in a covenant agreement to put 
away from them their evil doings, and wept and 
prayed in company with Ezra. 

The result was that the people thoroughly re- 
pented of their transgressions, and Israel was re- 
formed. Praying and a good man, who was neither 
blind nor unconcerned, did the deed. 

Of Ezra it is written, “ For he mourned because 
of the transgression of them that had been carried 
away.” So it is with every praying man in the 
Church when he has eyes to see the transgression of 
evil doers in the Church, who has a heart to grieve 
over them, and who has a spirit in him so con- 
cerned about the Church that he prays about it. 

Blessed is that Church who has praying leaders, 
who can see that which is disorderly in the Church, 
who are grieved about it, and who put forth their 
hands to correct the evils which harm God’s cause 


118 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


as a weight to its progress. One point in the indict- 
ment against those “ Who are at ease in Zion,” re- 
ferred to by Amos, is that “ they are not grieved for 
the affliction of Joseph.” And this same indict- 
ment could be brought against Church leaders of 
modern times. ‘They are not grieved because the 
members are engulfed in a craze for worldly, carnal 
things, nor when there are those in the Church 
walking openly in disorder, whose lives scandalise 
religion. Of course such leaders do not pray over 
the matter, for praying would beget a spirit of 
solicitude in them for these evil doers, and would 
drive away the spirit of unconcern which pos- 
sesses them. 

It would be well for prayerless Church leaders 
and careless pastors to read the account of the ink 
horn man in Ezekiel, 9th chapter, where God in- 
structed the prophet to send through the city cer- 
tain men who would destroy those in the city 
because of the great evils found therein. But cer- 
tain persons were to be spared. These were they 
who “ sigh and cry for all the abominations that be 
done in the midst of the city.” ‘The man with the 
ink horn was to mark every one of these sighers 
and mourners so that they would escape the im- 
pending destruction. Please note that the instruc- 
tions were that the slaying of those who did not 
mourn and sigh should “ Begin at my sanctuary.” 

What a lesson for non-praying, unéoncerned of- 
ficials of the modern Church! How few there are 


CONCERTED PRAYER 119 


who “ sigh and cry”’ for present-day abominations 
in the land, and who are grieved over the desola- 
tions of Zion! What need for “two or three to 
be gathered together’ in a concert of prayer over 
these conditions, and in the secret place weep and 
pray for the sins in Zion! 

This concert of prayer, this agreement in pray- 
ing, taught by our Lord in the eighteenth chapter 
of Matthew, finds proof and illustration elsewhere. 
This was the kind of prayer which Paul referred to 
in his request to his Roman brethren, recorded in 
Romans 15: 30: 


“ Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus 
Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye 
strive together with me in your prayers to God for 
me; that I may be delivered from them that do not 
believe in Judea.’ 


Here is unity in prayer, prayer by agreement, and 
prayer which drives directly at deliverance from 
unbelieving and evil men, the same kind of prayer 
urged by our Lord, and the end practically the 
same, deliverance from unbelieving men, that deliv- 
erance wrought either by bringing them to repen- 
tance or by exclusion from the Church. 

The same idea is found in II Thessalonians 3:1: 


“Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the 
Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it 
is with you; and that we may be delivered from un- 
reasonable and wicked men.” 


120 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Here is united prayer requested by an Apostle, 
among other things, for deliverance from wicked 
men, that same that the Church of God needs in this 
day. By joining their prayers to his, there was the 
desired end of riddance from men who were hurtful 
to the Church of God and who were a hindrance to 
the running of the Word of the Lord. Let us ask, 
are there not in the present-day Church those who 
are a positive hindrance to the on-going of the 
Word of the Lord? What better course is there 
than to jointly pray over the question, at the same 
time using the Christ-given course of discipline 
first to save them, but failing in that course, to 
excise them from the body? 

Does that seem a harsh course? ‘Then our Lord 
was guilty of harshness Himself, for He ends these 
directions by saying, “ But if he neglect to hear the 
Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and 
a publican.” 

No more is this harshness than is the act of the 
skilful surgeon, who sees the whole body and its 
members endangered by a gangrenous limb, and 
severs the limb from the body for the good of the 
whole. No more was it harshness in the captain 
and crew of the vessel on which Jonah was found, 
when the storm arose threatening destruction to all 
on board, to cast the fleeing prophet overboard. 
|;What seems harshness is obedience to God, is for 
the welfare of the Church, and is’ wise in the 
extreme, 


XII 


THE UNIVERSALITY OF PRAYER 


“Tt takes more of the power of the Spirit to make the 
farm, the home, the office, the store, the shop holy than it 
does to make the Church holy. It takes more of the power 
of the Spirit to make Saturday holy than to make Sunday 
holy. It takes much more of the power of the Spirit to make 
money for God than it does to make a talk for God. Much 
more to live a great life for God than'‘to preach a great 
sermon.’—Epwarp M. Bounps. 


RAYER is far-reaching in its influence and 
world-wide in its effects. It affects all men, 
affects them everywhere, and affects them in 

all things. It touches man’s interest in time and 
eternity. It lays hold upon God and moves Him to 
interfere in the affairs of earth. It moves the 
angels to minister to men in this life. It restrains 
and defeats the devil in his schemes to ruin man. 
Prayer goes everywhere and lays its hand upon 
everything. There is a universality in prayer. 
When we talk about prayer and its work we must 
use universal terms. It is individual in its applica- 
tion and benefits, but it is general and world-wide 
at the same time in its good influences. It blesses 
man in every event of life, furnishes him help in 
every emergency, and gives him comfort in every 
trouble. [here is no experience through which 


121 


122 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


man. is called to go but prayer is there as a mia a 
comforter and a guide. 

When we speak of the universality of prayer, we 
discover many sides to it. First, it may be re- 
marked that all men ought to pray. Prayer is in- 
tended for all men, because all men need God and 
need what God has and what prayer only can secure. 
As men are called upon to pray everywhere, by 
consequence all men must pray for men are every- 
where. Universal terms are used when men are 
commanded to pray, while there is a promise in uni- 
versal terms to all who call upon God for pardon, 
for mercy and for help: 


“For there is no difference; for the same Lord 
over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For who- 
soever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be 
saved.” 


As there is no difference in the state of sin in 
which men are found, and all men need the saving 
grace of God which only can bless them, and as this 
saving grace is obtained only in answer to prayer, 
therefore all men are called on to pray because of 
their very needs. 

It is a rule of Scriptural interpretation that when- 
ever a command issues with no limitation, it is uni- 
versal in binding force. So the words of the Lord 
in Isaiah are to the point: 


“ Seek ye the Lord while he may be found; call ye 
upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake 


THE UNIVERSALITY OF PRAYER 123 


his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and 
let him return unto the Lord, who will have mercy, 
and to our God who will abundantly pardon.” 


So that as wickedness is universal, and as pardon 
is needed by all men, so all men must seek the Lord 
while he may be found, and must call upon Him 
while he is near. Prayer belongs to all men because 
all men are redeemed in Christ. It is a privilege for 
every man to pray, but it is no less a bounden duty 
for them to call upon God. No sinner is debarred 
from the mercy seat. All are welcomed to approach 
the throne of grace with all their wants and woes, 
with all their sins and burdens. 


“ Come all the world, come, sinner thou, 
All things in Christ are ready now.” 


Whenever a poor sinner turns his eyes to God, 
no matter where he is nor what his guilt and sinful- 
ness, the eye of God is upon him and His ear is 
opened to his prayers. 

But men may pray everywhere, since God is ac- 
cessible in every clime and under all circumstances. 
“T will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting 
up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.” 

No locality is too distant from God on earth to 
reach heaven. No place is so remote that God can- 
not see and hear one who looks toward Him and 
seeks His face. Oliver Holden puts into a hymn 
these words: 


124 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


“Then, my soul, in every strait, 
To Thy Father come and wait ; 
He will answer every prayer ; 
God is present everywhere.” 


There is just this modification of the idea that 
one can pray everywhere. Some places, because of 
the evil business carried on there, or because of the 
environments which belong there, growing out of 
the place itself, the moral character of those who 
carry on the business, and of those who support it, 
are localities where prayer would not be in place. 
We might instance the saloon, the theatre, the 
opera, the card table, the dance, and other like 
places of worldly amusement. Prayer is so much 
out of place at such places that no one would ever 
presume to pray. Prayer would be an intrusion, so 
regarded by the owners, the patrons and the sup- 
porters of such places. Furthermore those who at- 
tend such places are not praying people. They 
belong almost entirely to the prayerless crowd of 
worldlings. 

While we are to pray everywhere, it unques- 
tionably means that we are not to frequent places 
where we cannot pray. To pray everywhere is to 
pray in all legitimate places, and to attend especially 
_ those places where prayer is welcome, and is given a 
gracious hospitality. ‘To pray everywhere is to pre- 
serve the spirit of prayer in places of business, in 
our intercourse with men, and in the privacy of the 
home amid all of its domestic cares, 


THE UNIVERSALITY OF PRAYER § 125 


The Model Prayer of our Lord, called familiarly 
“The Lord’s Prayer,” is the universal prayer, be- 
cause it is peculiarly adapted to all men everywhere 
in all circumstances in all times of need. It can be 
put in the mouths of all people in all nations, and in 
all times. It is a model of praying which needs no 
amendment nor alteration for every family, people 
and nation. 

Furthermore, prayer has its universal appli- 
cation in that all men are to be the subjects of 
prayer. All men everywhere are to be prayed 
for. Prayer must take in all of Adam’s fallen 
race because all men are fallen in Adam, redeemed 
in Christ, and are benefited by prayers for them. 
This is Paul’s doctrine in his prayer directory in 
I Timothy 2:1: 


“T exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, 
prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made 
for all men.” 


There is strong Scriptural warrant, therefore, for 
reaching out and embracing all men in our prayers, 
since not only are we commanded thus to pray for 
them, but the reason given is that Christ gave Him- 
self a ransom for all men, and all men are provision- 
ally beneficiaries of the atoning death of Jesus 
Christ. 

But lastly, and more at length, prayer has a uni- 
versal side in that all things which concern us are to 
be prayed about, while all things which are for our 


126 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


good, physical, social, intellectual, spiritual, and 
eternal, are subjects of prayer. Before, however, 
we consider this phase of prayer let us stop and 
again look at the universal prayer for all men. As 
a special class to be prayed for, we may mention 
those who have control in state or who bear rule in 
the Church. Prayer has mighty potencies. It 
makes good rulers, and makes them better rulers. 
It restrains the lawless and the despotic. Rulers 
are to be prayed for. They are not out of the reach 
and the control of prayer, because they are not out 
of the reach and control of God. Wicked Nero was 
on the throne of Rome when Paul wrote these 
words to ‘Timothy urging prayer for those in 
authority. 

Christian lips are to breathe prayers for the cruel 
and infamous rulers in state as well as for the 
righteous and the benign governors and princes. 
Prayer is to be as far-reaching as the race, “ for all 
men.” Humanity is to burden our hearts as we 
pray, and all men are to engage our thoughts in ap- 
proaching a throne of grace. In our praying hours, 
all men must have a place. The wants and woes of 
the entire race are to broaden and make tender our 
sympathies, and inflame our petitions. No little 
man can pray. No man with narrow views of God, 
of His plan to save men, and of the universal needs 
of all men, can pray effectually. It takes a broad- 
minded man, who understands God and His pur- 
poses in the atonement, to pray well. No cynic can 


THE UNIVERSALITY OF PRAYER 127 


pray. Prayer is the divinest philanthropy, as well 
as giant-great-heartedness. Prayer comes from a 
big heart, filled with thoughts about all men and 
with sympathies for all men. 

Prayer runs parallel with the will of God, “ who 
will have all men to be saved and to come unto the 
knowledge of the truth.” 

Prayer reaches up to heaven, and brings heaven 
down to earth. Prayer has in its hands a double 
blessing. It rewards him who prays, and blesses 
him who is prayed for. It brings peace to warring 
passions and calms warring elements. ‘Tranquillity 
is the happy fruit of true praying. ‘There is an 
inner calm which comes to him who prays and an 
outer calm as well. Prayer creates “ quiet and 
peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.” 

Right praying not only makes life beautiful in 
peace, but redolent in righteousness and weighty in 
influence. Honesty, gravity, integrity and weight 
in character are the natural and essential fruits of 
. prayer. 

It is this kind of world-wide, large-hearted, un- 
selfish praying which pleases God well, and which is 
acceptable in His sight, because it co-operates with 
His will and runs in gracious streams to all men and 
to each man. It is this kind of praying which the 
man Christ Jesus did when on earth, and the same 
kind which He is now doing at His Father’s right 
hand in heaven, as our Mighty Intercessor. He is 
the pattern of prayer. He is between God and man, 


128 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


the one Mediator, who gave Himself a ransom for 
all men, and for each man. 

So it is that true prayer links itself to the will of 
God, and runs in streams of solicitude, and compas- 
sion, and intercession for all men. As Jesus Christ 
died for every one involved in the fall, so prayer 
girdles every one and gives itself for the benefit of 
every one. Like our one Mediator between God 
and man, he who prays stands midway between God 
and man, with prayers, supplications, “‘and strong 
cryings and tears.” Prayer holds in its grasp the 
movements of the race of man, and embraces the 
destinies of men for all eternity. The king and 
the beggar are both affected by it. It touches 
heaven and moves earth. Prayer holds earth to 
heaven and brings heaven in close contact with 
earth. 


“ Your guides and brethren bear 
Forever on your mind; 
Extend the arms of mighty prayer 
In grasping all mankind.” 


XII 


PRAYER AND MISSIONS 


“One day, about this time, I heard an unusual bleating 
amongst my few remaining goats, as if they were being killed 
or tortured. I rushed to the goat-house and found myself 
instantly surrounded by a band of armed men. The snare 
had caught me, their weapons were raised, and I expected 
the next moment to die. But God moved me to talk to them 
firmly and kindly; I warned them of their sin and its punish- 
ment; I showed them that only my love and pity led me to 
remain there seeking their good, and that if they killed me 
they killed their best friend. I further assured them I was 
not afraid to die, for at death my Saviour would take me to 
heaven and that I would be far happier than on earth; and 
that my only desire to live was to make them happy by teach- 
ing them to love Jesus Christ my Lord. I then lifted up my 
hands and eyes to the heavens and prayed aloud for Jesus to 
bless all my Tannese and to protect me or take me to heaven 
as He saw to be for the best. One after another they slipped 
away from me and Jesus restrained them again. Did ever 
mother run more quickly to protect her crying child in 
danger’s hour than the Lord Jesus hastens to answer believ- 
ing prayer and send help to His servants in His own good 
time and way, so far as it shall be for their good and His 
glory.”—JoHN G, Paton. 


AVE ce mean the giving of the Gospel to 


those of Adam’s fallen race who have 
never heard of Christ and His atoning 
death. It means the giving to others the opportun-, 
ity to hear of salvation through our Lord Jesus: 
Christ, and allowing others to have a chance to 


129 


130 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


receive, and accept the blessings of the Gospel, as 
we have it in Christianised lands. It means that 
those who enjoy the benefits of the Gospel give 
these same religious advantages and Gospel privi- 
leges to all of mankind. Prayer has a great deal to 
do with missions. Prayer is the hand-maid of mis- 
sions. ‘The success of all real missionary effort is 
dependent on prayer. The life and spirit of mis- 
sions are the life and spirit of prayer. Both prayer 
and missions were born in the Divine Mind. 
Prayer and missions are bosom companions. 
Prayer creates and makes missions successful, while 
missions lean heavily on prayer. In the seventy- 
second Psalm, one which deals with the Messiah, 
it is stated that “ prayer shall be made for him con- 
tinually.’ Prayer would be made for His coming 
to save man, and prayer would be made for the 
success of the plan of salvation which He would 
come to set on foot. 

| The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the spirit of mis- 
sions. Our Lord Jesus Christ was Himself the first 
missionary. His promise and advent composed the 
first missionary movement. ‘The missionary spirit 
is not simply a phase of the Gospel, not a mere 
feature of the plan of salvation, but is its very spirit 
and life. ‘The missionary movement is the Church 
of Jesus Christ marching in militant array, with the 
design of possessing the whole world of mankind 
for Christ. Whoever is touched by the Spirit of 
God is fired by the missionary spirit. An anti- 


MISSIONS 131 


missionary Christian is a contradiction in terms. 
We might say that it would be impossible to be an 
anti-missionary Christian because of the impossi- 
bility for the Divine and human forces to put men 
in such a state as not to align them with the mis- 
sionary cause. Missionary impulse is the heart-beat 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, sending the vital forces 
of Himself through the whole body of the Church. 
The spiritual life of God’s people rises or falls with 
the force of those heart-beats. When these life 
forces cease, then death ensues. So that anti- 
missionary Churches are dead Churches, just as 
anti-missionary Christians are dead Christians. 

The craftiest wile of Satan, if he cannot prevent 
a great movement for God, is to debauch the move- 
ment. If he can put the movement first, and the 
spirit of the movement in the background, he has 
materialised and thoroughly debauched the move- 
ment. Mighty prayer only will save the movement 
from being materialised, and keep the spirit of the 
movement strong and controlling. 

The key of all missionary success is prayer. 
That key is in the hands of the home churches. 
The trophies won by our Lord in heathen lands will 
be won by praying missionaries, not by profes- 
sional workers in foreign lands. More especially 
will this success be won by saintly praying in the 
churches at home. The home church on her knees 
fasting and praying, is the great base of spiritual 
supplies, the sinews of war, and the pledge of vic- 


182 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


tory in this dire and final conflict. Financial re- 
sources are not the real sinews of war in this fight. 
Machinery in itself carries no power to break down 
heathen walls, open effectual doors and win heathen 
hearts to Christ. Prayer alone can do the deed. 

Aaron and Hur did not more surely give victory 
to Israel through Moses, than a praying church 
through Jesus Christ will give victory on every 
battlefield in heathen lands. It is as true in foreign 
fields as it is in home lands. The praying church 
wins the contest. ‘The home church has done but 
a paltry thing when she has furnished the money to 
establish missions and support her missionaries. 
Money is important, but money without prayer is 
powerless in the face of the darkness, the wretched- 
ness and the sin in unchristianised lands. Prayer- 
less giving breeds barrenness and death. Poor 
praying at home is the solution of poor results in 
the foreign field. Prayerless giving is the secret of 
all crises in the missionary movements of the day, 
and is the occasion of the accumulation of debts in 
missionary boards. 

It is all right to urge men to give of their means 
to the missionary cause. But it is much more im- 
portant to urge them to give their prayers to the 
movement. Foreign missions need, today, more the 
power of prayer than the power of money. Prayer 
can make even poverty in the missionary cause 
move on amidst difficulties and hindrances. Much 
money without prayer is helpless and powerless in 


MISSIONS 133 
the face of the utter darkness and sin and wretch- 
edness on the foreign field. 

This is peculiarly a missionary age. Protestant 
Christianity is stirred as it never was before in the 
line of aggression in pagan lands. The missionary 
movement has taken on proportions that awaken 
hope, kindle enthusiasm, and which demand the at- 
tention, if not the interest, of the coldest and the 
most lifeless. Nearly every Church has caught the 
contagion, and the sails of their proposed mission- 
ary movements are spread wide to catch the favour- 
ing breezes. Herein is the danger just now, that 
the missionary movement will go ahead of the mis- 
sionary spirit. This has always been the peril of 
the Church, losing the substance in the shade, losing 
the spirit in the outward shell, and contenting itself 
in the mere parade of the movement, putting the 
force of effort in the movement and not in the 
spirit. 

The magnificence of this movement may not only 
blind us to the spirit of it, but the spirit which 
should give life and shape to the movement may be 
lost in the wealth of the movement as the ship, 
borne by favouring winds, may be lost when these 
winds swell to a storm. 

Not a few of us have heard eloquent and earnest 
speeches stressing the imperative need of money for 
missions where we have heard one stressing the im- 
perative need of prayer. All our plans and devices 
drive to the one end of raising money, not to 


184 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


quicken faith and promote prayer. The common 
idea among Church leaders is that if we get the 
money, prayer will come as a matter of course. 
‘The very reverse is the truth. If we get the Church 
at the business of praying, and thus secure the spirit 
of missions, money will more than likely come as a 
matter of course. Spiritual agencies and spiritual 
forces never come as a matter of course. Spiritual 
duties and spiritual factors, left to the “ matter of 
course” law, will surely fall out and die. Only 
the things which are stressed live and rule in the 
spiritual realm. They who give, will not necessarily 
pray. Many in our churches are liberal givers who 
are noted for their prayerlessness. One of the 
evils of the present-day missionary movement lies 
just there. Giving is entirely removed from 
prayer. Prayer receives scant attention, while giv- 
ing stands out prominently. They who truly pray 
will be moved to give. Praying creates the giving 
spirit. ‘The praying ones will give liberally and 
self-denyingly. He who enters his closet to God, 
will also open his purse to God. But perfunctory, 
grudging, assessment-giving kills the very spirit of 
prayer. Emphasising the material to the neglect 
of the spiritual, by an inexorable law retires and 
discounts the spiritual. 

It is truly wonderful how great a part money 
plays in the modern religious movements, and how 
little prayer plays in them. In striking contrast 
with that statement, it is marvellous how little part 


MISSIONS 135 


money played in primitive Christianity as a factor 
in spreading the Gospel, and how wonderful part 
prayer played in it. | 
The grace of giving is nowhere cultured to a 
ticher growth than in the closet. If all our mis- 
sionary boards and secretaryships were turned 
into praying bands, until the agony of real prayer 
and travail with Christ for a perishing world 
came on them, real estate, bank stocks, United 
States bonds would be in the market for the spread- 
ing of Christ’s Gospel among men. If the spirit 
of prayer prevailed, missionary boards whose in- 
dividual members are worth millions, would not 
be staggering under a load of debt and great 
Churches would not have a yearly deficit and a 
yearly grumbling, grudging, and pressure to pay a 
beggarly assessment to support a mere handful of 
missionaries, with the additional humiliation of de- 
bating the question of recalling some of them. The 
on-going of Christ’s kingdom is locked up in the 
closet of prayer by Christ Himself, and not in the 
contribution box. | 
The Prophet Isaiah, looking down the centurie 
with the vision of a seer, thus expresses his purpose 
to continue in prayer and give God no rest till 
Christ’s kingdom be established among men: 


“ For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, and for 
Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest till the righteousness 
thereof goeth forth as brightness, and the salvation 
thereof as a lamp that burneth.” 


136 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


Then, foretelling the final success of the Chris- 
tian Church, he thus speaks: 


“And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and 
all kings thy glory, and thou shalt be called by a new 
name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name.” 


Then the Lord, Himself, by the mouth of this 
Evangelical prophet, declares as follows: 


“ T have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, 
which shall never hold their peace, day nor night. 
Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence. 
And give him no rest till he establish and till he make 
Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” 


In the margin of our Bible, it reads, “ Ye that 
are the Lord’s remembrancers.” ‘The idea is, that 
these praying ones are those who are the Lord’s re- 
membrancers, those who remind Him of what He 
has promised, and who give Him no rest till God’s 
Church is established in the earth. 

And one of the leading petitions in the Lord’s 
Prayer deals with this same question of the estab- 
lishing of God’s kingdom and the progress of the 
Gospel in the short, pointed petition, “Thy king- 
dom come,” with the added words, “ ‘Thy will be 
done on earth as it is done in heaven.” 

The missionary movement in the Apostolic 
Church was born in an atmosphere of fasting and 
prayer. The very movement looking to offering 
the blessings of the Christian Church to the Gentiles 


MISSIONS 137 


was on the housetop on the occasion when Peter 
went up there to pray, and God showed him His 
Divine purpose to extend the privileges of the Gos- 
pel to the Gentiles, and to break down the middle 
wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. 

But more specifically Paul and Barnabas were 
definitely called and set apart to the missionary field 
at Antioch when the Church there had fasted and 
prayed. It was then the Holy Spirit answered from 
heaven: ‘“‘ Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the 
work whereunto I have called them.” 

Please note this was not the call to the ministry 
of Paul and Barnabas, but more particularly their 
definite call to the foreign field. Paul had been 
called to the ministry years before this, even at his 
conversion. ‘This was a subsequent call to a work 
born of special and continued prayer in the Church 
at Antioch. God calls men not only to the ministry 
but to be missionaries. Missionary work is God’s 
work. And it is the God-called men who are to do 
it. ‘These are the kind of missionaries which have 
wrought well and successfully in the foreign field in 
the past, and the same kind will do the work in the 
future, or it will not be done. 

It is praying missionaries who are needed for the 
work, and it is a praying church who sends them 
out, which are prophecies of the success which is 
promised. The sort of religion to be exported by 
missionaries is of the praying sort. The religion 
to which the heathen world is to be converted is a 


188 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


religion of prayer, and a religion of prayer to the 
true God. ‘The heathen world already prays to its 
idols and false gods. But they are to be taught by 
praying missionaries, sent out by a praying Church, 
to cast away their idols and to begin to call upon 
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No prayerless 
church can transport to heathen lands a praying 
religion. No prayerless missionary can bring 
heathen idolaters who know not our God to their 
knees in true prayer until he becomes pre-eminently 
a man of prayer. As it takes praying men at 
home to do God’s work, none the less does it take 
praying missionaries to bring those who sit in dark- 
ness to the light. 

‘he most noted and most successful missionaries 
have been pre-eminently men of prayer. David 
Livingstone, William Taylor, Adoniram Judson, 
Henry Martyn, and Hudson Taylor, with many 
more, form a band of illustrious praying men whose 
impress and influence still abide where they la- 
boured. No prayerless man is wanted for this job. 
Above everything else, the primary qualification 
for every missionary is prayer. Let him be, above 
everything else, a man of prayer. And when the 
crowning day comes, and the records are made up 
and read at the great judgment day, then it will 
appear how well praying men wrought in the hard 
fields of heathendom, and how much was due to 
them in laying the foundations of Christianity in 
those fields. 


MISSIONS 139 


The one only condition which is to give world- 
wide power to this Gospel is prayer, and the spread 
of this Gospel will depend on prayer. The energy 
which was to give it marvelous momentum and 
conquering power over all its malignant and power- 
ful foes is the energy of prayer. 

The fortunes of the kingdom of Jesus Christ are 
not made by the feebleness of its foes. They are 
strong and bitter and have ever been strong, and 
ever will be. But mighty prayer—this is the one 
great spiritual force which will enable the Lord 
Jesus Christ to enter into full possession of His 
kingdom, and secure for Him the heathen as His 
inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for 
His possession. 

It is prayer which will enable Him to break 
His foes with a rod of iron, that will make 
these foes tremble in their pride and power, who 
are but frail potter’s vessels, to be broken in 
pieces by one stroke of His hand. A person who 
can pray is the mightiest instrument Christ has in 
this world. A praying Church is stronger than all 
the gates of hell. 

God’s decree for the glory of His Son’s kingdom 
is dependent on prayer for its fulfilment: “ Ask of 
me, and I will give thee the heathen for thy inherit- 
ance, and the uttermost part of the earth for thy 
possession.” God the Father gives nothing to His 
Son only through prayer. And the reason why the 
Church has not received more in the missionary 


140 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


work in which it is engaged is the lack of prayer. 
“Ve have not, because ye ask not.” 

Every dispensation foreshadowing the coming of 
Christ when the world has been evangelised, at the 
end of time, rests upon these constitutional pro- 
visions, God’s decree, His promises and prayer. 
However far away that day of victory by distance 
or time, or remoteness of shadowy type, prayer is 
the essential condition on which the dispensation 
becomes strong, typical and representative. From 
Abraham, the first of the nation of the Israelites, 
the friend of God, down to this dispensation of the 
Holy Spirit, this has been true. 


«The nations call! from sea to sea 
Extends the thrilling cry, 
‘Come over, Christians, if there be, 
And help us, ere we die.’ 


* Our hearts, O Lord, the summons feel ; 
Let hand with heart combine, 
And answer to the world’s appeal, 
By giving ‘ that is thine.’ ” 


Our Lord’s plan for securing workers in the 
foreign missionary field is the same plan He set 
on foot for obtaining preachers. It is by the 
process of praying. It is the prayer plan as dis- 
tinguished from all man-made plans. These mis- 
sion workers are to be “sent men.” God must 
send them. ‘They are God-called, divinely moved 
to this great work. ‘They are inwardly moved to 


MISSIONS 141 


enter the harvest fields of the world and gather 
sheaves for the heavenly garners. Men do not 
choose to be missionaries any more than they 
choose to be preachers. God sends out labourers 
in His harvest fields in answer to the prayers of 
His Church. Here is the Divine plan as set forth 
by our Lord: 


“ But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved 
with compassion on them, because they fainted, and 
were as sheep having no shepherd. ‘Then saith he 
unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but 
the labourers are few. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord 
of the harvest that he will send forth labourers into 
his harvest.” 


It is the business of the home church to do the 
praying. It is the Lord’s business to call and send 
forth the labourers. ‘The Lord does not do the 
praying. The Church does not do the calling. And 
just as our Lord’s compassions were aroused by the 
sight of multitudes, weary, hungry, and scattered, 
exposed to evils, as sheep having no shepherd, so 
whenever the Church has eyes to see the vast 
multitudes of earth’s inhabitants, descendants of 
Adam, weary in soul, living in darkness, and 
wretched and sinful, will it be moved to compassion, 
and begin to pray the Lord of the harvest to send 
forth labourers into His harvest. 

Missionaries, like ministers, are born of praying 
people. A praying church begets labourers in the 


142 THE ESSENTIALS OF PRAYER 


harvest-field of the world. The scarcity of mis- 
sionaries argues a non-praying church. It is all 
_ right to send trained men to the foreign field, but 
first of all they must be God-sent. The sending is 
the fruit of prayer. As praying men are the 
occasion of sending them, so in turn the workers 
must be praying men. And the prime mission of 
these praying missionaries is to convert prayerless 
heathen men into praying men. Prayer is the 
proof of their calling, their Divine credentials, and 
their work. 

He who is not a praying man at home needs the 
one fitness to become a mission worker abroad. He 
who has not the spirit which moves him toward 
sinners at home, will hardly have a spirit of com- 
passion for sinners abroad. Missionaries are not 
made of men who are failures at home. He who 
will be a man of prayer abroad must, before any- 
thing else, be a man of prayer in his home church. 
Tf he be not engaged in turning sinners away from 
their prayerless ways at home, he will hardly suc- 
ceed in turning away the heathen from their pray- 
erless ways. In other words, it takes the same 
spiritual qualifications for being a home worker as 
it does for being a foreign worker. 

God in His own way, in answer to the prayers of 
His Church, calls men into His harvest-fields. Sad 
will be the day when Missionary Boards and 
Churches overlook that fundamental fact, and send 
out their own chosen men independent of God. 


MISSIONS 143 


Is the harvest great? Are the labourers few? 
Then “pray ye the Lord of the harvest to send 
forth labourers into his harvest.” Oh, that a great 
wave of prayer would sweep over the Church ask- 
ing God to send out a great army of labourers into 
the needy harvest fields of the earth! No danger 
of the Lord of the harvest sending out too many 
labourers and crowding the fields. He who calls 
will most certainly provide the means for support- 
ing those whom He calls and sends forth. 

The one great need in the modern missionary 
movement is intercessors. They were scarce in the 
days of Isaiah. This was his complaint: 


“ And he saw that there was no man, and wondered 
that there was no intercessor.” 


So today there is great need of intercessors, first, 
for the needy harvest-fields of earth, born of a 
Christly compassion for the thousands without the 
Gospel; and then intercessors for labourers to be 
sent forth by God into the needy fields of earth. 





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